Dubai — Eight billion, Two weeks, One Planet! These words scream out from one of the high-rise buildings in the middle of the Dubai Exhibition Centre in United Arab Emirates where the 28th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is taking place.
The above words paint a picture of the serionsness of the United Nations in its war against climate change to save the eight billion human population from the looming danger that could happen due to lack of action.
The summit, which starts today ends December 12.
President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi and other Heads of state and governments are expected to deliver speeches in the first days of the summit in efforts to find lasting solutions to problems affecting the climate. Climate finance, mitigation and adaptation are part of the COP 28 meeting's agenda.
President Masisi's delegation will comprise Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Local Government and Rural Development, Land and Water Affairs, Agriculture, Health, Minerals and Energy, Environment and Tourism; senior government officials, as well as, representatives from the private sector, academia, Non-governmental and youth-led organisations.
King Charles III is expected to deliver an address at the summit's opening ceremony and more than 160 member nations are expected to attend this year's conference. Pope Francis, who will be the first Pontiff to attend a COP will grace the occasion.
In 1992, countries joined an international treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is a framework for international cooperation to combat climate change by limiting average global temperature increases and the resulting climate change and coping with the then inevitable impacts.
This then led to the Kyoto Protocol of 1995 which legally bound developed country parties to emission reduction targets and the subsequent Paris Agreement of 2015 which sought to accelerate and intensify the actions and investment needed for a sustainable low-carbon future whose primary aim is to fortify global response to the threat posed by the climate change by keeping temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius and even to a further bare minimum of 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The treaty also aimed to strengthen countries to deal with the impacts of climate change with appropriate financial flows, including by setting a new goal on the provision of finance from the US$100 billion floor before 2025 and enhancing capacity building framework thus supporting action by developing countries and the most vulnerable ones in line with their national objectives.
BOPA
