What can we expect from COP-28 regarding environmental trends?

July 18, 2023

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The United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP28) for 2023, which will take place from November 30 to December 12, brings a new venue for the Western world: the United Arab Emirates (UAE), more specifically, in the city of Dubai. As much as international conferences hosted in the Middle East may be news to many, the climate agenda in the region is already a reality and has been heavily invested in and
discussed by various social sectors.

Getting into context: The UAE was ambitious and successful in its global outreach event Expo 2020 – postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic – which was the exhibition that showcased new technologies (mainly green matrices), counting more than 24 million visitors in its 6-month duration. This new Emirati direction shows the political and technological maturity in overcoming fossil matrix energies, such as oil and natural gases. Moreover, the UAE has set an example in the Middle East region by being the first country in the region to sign the Paris Agreement, which provides for the reduction of greenhouse gases by 23.5% by 2030 – as well as being the first country to announce a strategy to zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Nevertheless, it has three of the world’s largest and cheapest solar power plants; it has pioneered the city of Masdar – a fully sustainable location where the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) is headquartered, and more. So the major goal of COP28 is not only to consolidate the critical role that the country already has, but to communicate it to the entire globe. And for the world, the goal is to persist in the gradual transition from clean energy to economic growth, reaching out to strategic partnerships and encouraging nations to work together for this global cause.

One of the strong alliances created, for example, is the partnership between the United Arab Emirates and Brazil – the latter with rich forests considered “the lung of the world,” the same country where Water & Beyond’s partner consultant Ernst Götsh regenerated land deemed infertile to the northeastern state of Brazil with his syntropic agriculture and agroforestry concept. In both countries, the focus of the partnership between the Latin and Arab countries is to develop carbon capture and storage technologies in the ongoing fight against “dirty energy sources. Finally, more sustainable methods of agriculture such as vertical and hydroponic farming, seeking to reduce water use and ensure food security, may be on the
conference’s agenda.

Allied with the vision of the conference and the directions of global ecology, Water & Beyond believes in environmental intelligence to use methods of climate modeling, paleogenomics, hydrometeorology, ecophysiology, micropropagation, and more to solve problems.

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