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Sustainability leaders and practitioners from around the UAE, region and the world convened at the Second Abu Dhabi Sustainable Business Leadership Forum in capital today. The forum, hosted by the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Group, ADSG, aimed to foster sustainable development, innovation, and responsible business growth. The two-day forum also provides opportunities to learn from regional experiences and be exposed to some of the latest sustainability approaches from global thought-leaders.
The event is being supported by the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi, EAD, and sponsored by Dolphin Energy and Etihad Airways as the official airline for the event.
The event opened with a keynote address by Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, Secretary-General of EAD, who said, "The timeliness of this forum could not be more opportune in many ways. The vital signs of the planet are not looking good. We see many ecosystems and species in decline and fish stocks have collapsed; the Global Burden of Disease Projects reported earlier this month that 5.5 million people worldwide are dying prematurely every year as a result of air pollution, and the impacts of climate change are being felt with shrinking ice sheets and an increased prevalence of extreme weather events.
"There is however hope that we may be at a pivotal point in history. 2015 was a year where nations came together and agreed a framework for change, 193 nations became signatories to the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets. These far-reaching targets address key global sustainability issues including poverty, hunger, climate change, equality, water, the state of our oceans, education, justice, and many more" Al Mubarak added.
"We have also recently seen the celebrations following COP21, the Paris Climate Conference, and the fact that we are seemingly a step closer to a legally binding and universal agreement on Climate Change. This aims to ensure we see global warming curbed to within the 2 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures deemed by scientists as a critical threshold. Consensus was reached among the 196 parties attending, and 146 national climate panels publically presented draft Intended National Determined Contributions, INDCs," the Secretary-General of EAD added.
"The UAE must now take the necessary steps to achieve these goals domestically, to make our contribution to reducing the impacts of climate change and to support others to achieve these goals where we can. Domestically we need a rapid transformation of our economy, to a green economy model, which is resource efficient, decouples growth from emissions, is competitive and knowledge-based and provides a platform to export green technology and services" she said.
Al Mubarak stressed, "Achieving these ambitious goals and transforming our economy will not happen on its own and will need focused and determined effort driven by a partnership of the different sectors of the economy - government and the regulatory sector, the private sector, advocacy bodies and various other communities."
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