UAE to spend $1.5m a year on green projects

Money will fund projects by the Global Green Growth Institute between 2019 and 2021

Dr Thani Bin Ahmad Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment, said the UAE will contribute $1.5 million annually from 2019 to 2021 to fund projects carried out by the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI).

The announcement was made at the GGGI’s Assembly and Council, held at the South Korean capital of Seoul where Al Zeyoudi led the UAE delegation.

Reiterating the UAE’s commitment to green development, Al Zeyoudi said in a statement: “In the UAE, we are resolved to achieving a green economy as per the UAE Green Agenda 2030 adopted by the UAE Cabinet in 2015. During 2017-18, we have made a lot of progress in the implementation of the Green Agenda 2030 and key policy developments with the assistance of the GGGI Abu Dhabi office team.”

“The UAE Cabinet adopted the National Climate Change Plan 2050 in June 2017, which consolidates the country’s climate mitigation and adaptation initiatives under one integrated framework. As part of the Climate Plan implementation, we have recently conducted a comprehensive climate risk assessment across four key sectors and identified priority climate risks that require us to develop appropriate adaptation measures,” he said.

Performance indicators

“The development of green growth indices is not new to us. We have already set 41 Green Key Performance Indicators to track the UAE’s progress towards achieving a green economy and offer regular updates through the UAE State of Green Economy Report. Furthermore, we launched the UAE Green Dashboard just last week, an open data platform which allows anyone to access and analyse underlying data on the 41 Green KPIs.”

The minister held several bilateral meetings to boost cooperation in agriculture, food safety, green development and the recycling of industrial materials. These included a meeting with Lee Gae-ho, South Korea’s Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, who is also GGGI’s assembly president and council chair, as well as top officials from the Korean National Cleaner Production Centre.