The Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MOCCAE) hosted a workshop at its headquarters in Dubai that drew the participation of leading international experts and the UAE’s university researchers to discuss how to improve the UAE’s ecological footprint.
The workshop was organized to engage academia in the MOCCAE executive team’s efforts to understand how to improve the UAE’s ecological footprint while obtaining more accurate and timely projections of the results. Researchers from around 10 national and private universities attended the event, along with the executive team and relevant federal and local authorities. MOCCAE also aims to identify a few universities that can collaborate in analyzing the country’s ecological footprint trend as well as become part of the global partnership.
In the opening remarks, Eng Aisha Al Abdooli, Director of Green Development and Environmental Affairs at MOCCAE, said: “The ecological footprint is a very important measure for us to understand the progress of the UAE’s efforts for sustainable development. We have been working closely with international organizations to improve our ecological performance and precision in charting this factor.”
She added: “The UAE has rolled out various environmental initiatives that have led to a continuous decline of the nation’s ecological footprint. Yet, we need to accelerate this effort further as the country’s 50thanniversary is rapidly approaching. As the methodology for calculating the ecological footprint is rather complex and requires considerable data, we are keen to count on the support of university researchers over the next few years in achieving accurate results.
“We hope this will be a great opportunity for researchers to learn about the methodology and applications directly from international experts and relate it to the development of future research agendas to support the country’s sustainable development.”
The UAE’s ecological footprint has significantly declined since 2000. In 2017, the Prime Minister’s Office requested MOCCAE to establish a cross-ministerial executive team that establishes a clear target for improving the ecological footprint and works towards achieving the goals of the UAE Vision 2021. MOCCAE also adopts the measure as one of the 41 Green Key Performance Indicators to monitor the progress of the country’s transformation towards a green economy as outlined in the UAE Green Agenda 2030.