UAE agenda at COP29: Climate financing, follow up on last year's pledges

Climate financing and backing deals that protect individuals against the dire results of climate change are on top of the UAE agenda at COP29. Kicking off on November 11 at the Azerbaijan capital, Baku, COP29 will receive participants from 200 countries.

At a press briefing on Monday, the COP UAE team explained how they plan to have ‘an influential presence’ at the 29th edition of the annual climate change conference. Building on UAE agreements that reached $100 million during COP28 that was held in Dubai last year, the country aims to follow up on negotiations and pledges that were made.

“The UAE signed 64 new pledges after COP28 was over, which proves that we followed up on everything, and our efforts towards climate change did not end there,” said Omar al Braiki, Deputy Chief Negotiator at the UAE Special Envoy for Climate Change Office.

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During the upcoming COP, the UAE pavilion will host over 60 programmes under 10 themes, including safeguarding lives and livelihood, youth inclusion, water resilience, energy transmission, and preserving biodiversity.

Through its top theme, climate financing, the UAE aims to take further commitments made last year towards countries that suffer the implications of climate change.

COP28-led participating states and organisations had pledged $85bn towards climate action. “In Baku, we will discuss how to activate this amount and how to ensure that the various states’ financial commitments will be directed towards those who will benefit the most from it,” said Abdulla Balalaa, Assistant Minister for Energy and Sustainable Affairs, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).

“We came out with many fruitful results from the UAE-held COP, so we want to ensure that all the pledges, agreements and deals made, are on track.

“Climate action is an urgent global procedure, and we hope to play an influential role in it,” added the assistant minister.