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Discussion On ‘Path To COP28’ Conducted By A Sustainability Club | |
| Sumita Pawar |
According to the report, spearheaded by Emirati student Alia Abdulmajeed Hussain Abdulrahim Ahli, the newly launched Sustainability Club at Zayed University is hosting a series of panel discussions and workshops.
The initiative aims to raise awareness of issues surrounding climate change and promote the UAE’s target to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The student-led club is supervised by Dr Suzanna Elmassah, who also leads Zayed University’s newly established interdisciplinary undergraduate programmes in sustainability that aim to educate students on the interconnected global challenges and ethical principles of sustainability.
According to the report, the club's first project for 2023, called "Path to COP 28," is meant to give students the knowledge and skills they need to act as student ambassadors at COP28 in the UAE later this year.
In a talk earlier this week, the club discussed the likely impact of the upcoming climate change conference and discussed the smart solutions of the circular economy that can accelerate the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals.
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Highlighting the significance of COP28 in the UAE, Dr Suzanna said: "For a country like the UAE and for the region, which is mainly dependent on oil and gas exports, hosting COP28 is a powerful message of commitment and responsibility towards the urgency of climate action.
"The country will still export energy, but it will export more responsible energy, more renewable energy, and less climate-impacting energy." "The UAE will set an example for other countries in the region in how to achieve this."
Anticipated to be the most important COP to date, the expectations for COP28 are high. "We expect COP28 to fill the gaps left behind by the previous COPs," Dr Suzanna said.
Report added that at COP28, she hopes to see more case studies from different countries on food sustainability, health, and nature, as well as results related to limiting biodiversity, as these were not adequately addressed at COP27.
Dr. Elmassah also thinks that at COP28, there will be talks about making the Loss and Damage Fund, which was announced at COP27, work. This will help developing countries take action on climate change.
Furthermore, she expects COP28 to show more climate financing options and products from the banking sector and ways to attract more money towards projects that bring ROI while saving the environment at the same time.
The COP28 sustainability initiatives report said that COP28 would be a promising space for innovative solutions and new technologies to enhance cradle-to-cradle practices, especially in the context of the circular economy approach to substitute the linear production approach.
The club’s leader, Alia, who along with five other Zayed University students from its pioneering College of Interdisciplinary Studies participated at COP27 as a youth delegate representing the UAE’s Ministry of Climate Change and Environment, highlighted the importance of youth engagement in accelerating the SDGs.
"Students should be at the centre of sustainability initiatives and be taken to COPs or similar sustainability events so they understand how things work and can make informed decisions tomorrow," she said.
The panel also discussed the role of the private sector in supporting and strengthening the youth’s engagement in sustainability, as mentioned in the report.
Guest speaker Rana Hajirasouli, founder of The Surpluses, a global B2B climate-tech start-up that aims to encourage profitable sustainability practises across industries, commented on the need to reduce the gap between academia and practitioners.
"A lot of R&D happens at the university level, so, in my opinion, it is more fruitful for the private sector to tap into that knowledge capital than it is for university students to be able to engage with them," said Rana.
"To stay ahead of the curve, we need bright young minds and youth to engage with the private sector because they will be shaping the future." "Understanding how they can operationalize and where they sit on the sustainability spectrum is really important," she added.
The Partner Challenge programme at Zayed University is one way that business and students can work together.
The programme engages leading organisations with talent in a structured and impactful way, offering a unique opportunity for private and public sector institutions to develop the future generation of leaders in the UAE, the report stated.
The report says that as the discussion went on, the panellists talked about how to deal with limited resources and the threat of climate change by coming up with smart circular economy solutions.
"The concept of a circular economy is closely related to the COP28's innovation agenda. With a circular economy, resources can be maximized, raw material consumption reduced, and waste can be repurposed," Alia said.
Rana said this about the UAE's move towards a circular economy: "On a policy level, we are quite forward-thinking.
"The circular economy policy is really interesting because if you look at the regional level legislation around this, there is actually a lot that we can fall back on to promote the reuse of goods."
Furthering the advantages of a circular economy, Rana said, "Circular economy adoption in the UAE amongst private sector actors can boost green growth for local job production and position the UAE as a knowledge leader in international best practices."