At the Road to COP28 Event in Dubai, the UAE Adds New Members

The UAE Alliance for Climate Action (UACA), the UAE's flagship non-state actor programme, is gaining critical momentum for decarbonization in the run-up to COP28 and beyond. Sodexo, Majid Al Futtaim, Pure Harvest Smart Farms, Al Naboodah, Khalifa University, Arla Foods, Advanced Media Trading, and Enviroserve have just joined the partnership, bringing the total number of members to 27.

The newest additions join a rapidly expanding group of prominent non-state actors which include ALDAR, Alserkal Group, American University of Sharjah, Apparel Group, Aramex, Bureau Veritas Group Middle East, Chalhoub Group, Danone, Farnek Services LLC, Johnson Controls Middle East and Africa, HSBC, PepsiCo Positive (pep+) Middle East, Nestlé, Ras Al Khaimah Municipality Department, Serco, SirajPower, Sobha Realty, Talabat and Unilever.

The addition of additional members strengthens the alliance and advances its aim of building momentum towards the UAE's Net Zero by 2050 strategic initiative, which is in accordance with science and the Paris Agreement. UACA members were invited to attend the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions' Road to COP28 event in Dubai to learn about the critical role that non-state actors play in supporting and actively contributing to climate and environmental goals.

UACA assists members at every stage of their decarbonisation journey by offering tools, visibility, and capacity building to help them set science-based targets and achieve even greater ambition. In 2023, the alliance hosted a series of workshops and webinars to increase understanding of Science Based Targets (SBTi), Scope 3 Emissions, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, Change Management, and the High-Level Champions' Race to Zero campaign.

UACA, which is supported by the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MOCCAE) and convened by the environmental non-profit organisation Emirates Nature-WWF, allows more collaboration on improving the policy environment through a single unified voice.

UACA is also a Race to Zero accelerator, a global campaign coordinated by the High-Level Champions that gathers non-state actors' leadership and support to generate momentum around decarbonisation and commits members to halve emissions by 2030. The alliance was showcased at the Road to COP28 event, emphasising the importance of non-state actors in the UAE banding together to increase their ambition towards short-term and long-term net-zero targets associated with the Paris Agreement and Science-Based Targets.

The UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for the COP28 Presidency, Razan Al Mubarak, stated that a whole-of-society approach is required if we are to successfully ramp up climate action and limit global warming in conformity with the Paris Agreement. She emphasised the essential role that local alliances like UACA play in bringing non-state actors together to assist build capacity and create collaboration, both of which are critical to accelerate climate action.

The Director-General of Emirates Nature-WWF, Laila Mostafa Abdullatif, praised local initiatives to encourage decarbonization. "We are excited by the growing interest in climate action demonstrated by local non-state actors, and we warmly welcome our newest members to the UAE Alliance for Climate Action," she said. A bottom-up strategy has the potential to accelerate the collective momentum required to realise the UAE's objective of a net-zero future. We are grateful to the High-Level Champions for establishing channels for all of society to participate, and we look forward to achieving great achievements at COP28 and beyond."

UACA was established with support from HSBC MENAT in partnership with the global Alliance for Climate Action (ACA) network, which is overseen by WWF International, Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), and C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. The Clean Energy Business Council and the Boston Consulting Group are among the technical partners. 

Source: www.zawya.com