Adaptation and mitigation solutions are crucial in addressing the challenges of climate change, said experts during a webinar held recently. Effective implementation depends on policies and cooperation at all scales and can be enhanced through integrated responses that link mitigation and adaptation with other societal objectives, panelists highlighted during the event.
The EU-GCC Clean Energy Technology Network, the Environmental Center for Arab Towns (ECAT) and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (GCoM) organised an online conference entitled ‘Climate Action and Energy Transition in the EU and GCC: Adaptation and Mitigation Solutions’.
Climate change is increasingly factored into a variety of development plans, such as how to manage the more severe and frequent extreme disasters and their associated risks, how to protect coastlines and deal with sea-level encroachment, how to best manage land and forests, how to deal with and plan for reduced water availability, how to develop resilient crop varieties and how to protect energy supply systems and public infrastructure.
Frank Wouters, Director, EU GCC Clean Energy Technology Network, said in the opening remarks “It is a fact that global warming leads to extreme weather and today we will tackle the topic from an urban perspective as most of us live in cities which are the battle ground to climate action.”
Addressing the first session on ‘Resilient urban futures: Enhancing local capacities and adaptation/mitigation solutions’ Roula Majdalani, Cluster Leader, Climate Change and Natural Resources Sustainability at United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), Lebanon shed light on co-benefits of climate solutions for cities, adaptation and mitigation in the Arab region as well as priorities of adaptation polices.
She highlighted the importance of linkage between adaptation and mitigation and what that means for cities which are in urgent need of this holistic approach.
The speaker said, this conference looks at the interlinkage between adaptation and mitigation which is key to achieve the Paris agreement which speaks to the SDGs agenda 2030 and to the urban agenda. “By 2030 climate change will reduce renewable water resources by 20 percent as a result of precipitation and increased the water demand and temperature rise will expand sea water intrusion to the coastal aquifers due to rising sea level,” she added.
The expert pointed that the urban areas are critically at risk from the impact of climate change which is mainly due to increasing and larger demand of energy consumption; a greater concentration of population in these urban areas make them vulnerable at risk of disaster related to climate change.
On the other hand, they also provide opportunities for bringing about innovative solutions, finding the resources and investment to adapt and mitigate climate change. When we look at the importance of green urban infrastructure in efficient transport systems, building designs, these are important as they provide passive cooling and reduce energy demand, and improve CO2 capture, highlighting in terms of adaption these green solutions play significant role in reducing temperature.
Speaking on the position of Gulf region in terms of adaption and the mitigation solution she said, mitigation is important and all countries of the region that have submitted their initial national determined contribution in 2015 and are committed at raising the share of the global energy mix. For example, Morocco committed to 50 percent by 2030, Egypt to 40 percent by 2035, oil producing states such as UAE, Algeria, and Qatar committed to 20 and 30 percent within the next 20 years, Saudi Arabia announced the green Middle East initiative and will include renewable energy projects which will reduce carbon emissions by around 4 percent of the global contribution.
Since 2016 several GCC countries have embarked on subsidiary firms in the energy and water sector to bring more efficiency in consumption and alleviate budgetary pressure and improve air quality. Adaptation remains the priority for the Arab countries and all Arab countries are pro-actively working on ensuring that there is going to be a global goal on adaptation in the climate change negotiation,
she added.
