Special Features
Global And Regional Urgency To Tackle Climate Change
The partnership of the Ecological Footprint Initiative confirms its ongoing commitment towards reducing the UAE’s Ecological Footprint, and highlights the need to continue establishing science-based policies, in light of today’s international launch of the Living Planet Report 2012.Published by WWF every two years, the Living Planet Report measures the state and health of our ecosystems and the extent of human demands on these ecosystems. Using the Ecological Footprint Indicator, this year’s Living Planet Report highlights that humanity’s consumption of natural resources such as energy, food, fibre and timber is 1.5 times more than the Earth can regenerate.
With desert ecosystems, hot and dry climates, increased and wasteful consumption of natural resources and having experienced periods of rapid growth, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE feature prominently in the report with high per capita Ecological Footprints. More than 70% of these countries footprints are attributed to the consumption of carbon intensive goods and services (such as energy), which echoes a global pattern where carbon is the main contributor to the world’s Ecological Footprint, at 54%. This highlights the need for more urgent action to reduce carbon emissions, which cause climate change, and adapt to its inevitable impacts.
Supporting the need for more action to address climate change and our over consumption of natural resources, HE Dr Rashid Bin Fahad, Chairman of the Ecological Footprint Initiative and Minister of the Environment and Water, said: “As part of the global community, the UAE is developing and adopting international best practices to promote clean energy and efficient use of resources. This is evidenced by the steps taken to include the environment as a core pillar in its development visions, such as the UAE Vision 2021 and the UAE’s Green Economy Initiative.”
HE Bin Fahad continued: “No sector alone can solve these issues and so there is a need for us to continue working collaboratively and constructively to realize a more sustainable path for the UAE and the world.”
The GCC region is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change with potential implications such as increasing temperatures, sea level rise threatening coastal developments and tourism, threatened food production and water resources, adverse impacts on human health and negative impacts on biodiversity such as the bleaching of coral reefs in the region. This would be likely to affect the country’s development, economy and human health.
Encouraging the region to move forward with effective and urgent action to mitigate its Footprint and adapt to the impacts of climate change, Ida Tillich, Acting Director General of EWS-WWF, the secretariat of the Ecological Footprint Initiative said: “With the region’s unique circumstances, the GCC countries have a great opportunity to play a pivotal role demonstrating how countries can contribute to a low carbon future through adopting renewable energy options and managing demand of natural resources. The UAE in particular has started taking strides in this regard. One example is the Ecological Footprint Initiative, which is now developing an energy efficiency standard for domestic lighting for the country while conducting socio-economic analysis to prioritise policies to help manage both the demand and supply of energy and desalinated water.”
Continued Tillisch: “Our natural environment is the integral foundation for our heritage, and we are eager to continue working in partnership with all sectors of society to develop more sustainably within the limits of our one planet.”
A summary of the Living Planet Report 2012 has been translated and published by the UAE’s Ecological Footprint Initiative. This summary also includes a case study outlining the UAE’s journey towards reducing its Ecological Footprint and can be downloaded from www.ewswwf.ae
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