Climate change has affected every strata of society, every country on every continent in the form of extreme weather conditions and rising sea levels. Greenhouse gas emissions that triggered climate change issues all over the world needed to be contained at the international level and then the historic Paris Climate Agreement happened. The agreement focused on International cooperation on helping developing countries to move towards low carbon economy and keeping a global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. As per the agreement, each country needed to take climate actions in accordance with their own economic and development significances.

 Implementation of the Paris Agreement is key to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, and provides a roadmap for climate actions that will reduce emissions and build climate resilience.

Paris Climate Agreement recently was in news as Trump announced he would pull the US from the agreement and seek to negotiate a "deal that's fair."  Initially US voluntarily committed to reduce its carbon emissions by 26 to 28 percent by 2025, compared to 2005 levels. Cheaper, lower-carbon natural gas has replaced coal in many US power plants pulling US closer to its target but this announcement by the President was a major jolt to the environmentalists of US as well as other countries.

 Following Trump's  announcement, local officials — as well as the heads of giant US tech companies, manufacturing firms, multinational banks, and universities — pledged to slash their own emissions to ensure America meets the target. So far 187 U.S. mayors have pledged to intensify their local climate efforts to meet the Paris agreement's aspirational goal to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels through 2100.

The US decision to leave Paris in no way brings an end to this unstoppable effort. China, India, the European Union and others are already showing strong leadership. 190 nations are showing strong determination to work with them to protect this and future generations.

UAE is committed to tackle the threat of global climate change. For the UAE, agreement signifies solutions which will create new social and economic opportunities.  UAE looks at climate change not just as a national priority, but also vital in addressing it early, in order to get more benefits and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. 

UAE has already initiated many projects in order to mitigate the effect of climate change but apart from collective pledges in the Paris agreement, a concerted effort is required to address the issues across government bodies, countries and other sectors of society. UAE needs to reduce emissions by 42% in 2030 relative to 2010. In the UAE, energy sector accounted for 80% of GHG emissions (2014) 15% came from road transport. UAE had been heavily dependent on oil and Gas for road transport but Electric Vehicles are to be adopted soon in UAE, with a focus on battery performance in hot and humid climate, and safety.

 By being the first country in the Middle-East to ratify the Paris Agreement, the UAE also plays an important leadership role in the region to unify countries to see the issue as a threat to local and regional stability, economic security and human well-being. 

The journey has already begun as there has been large scale installation of solar panels on rooftops. There are more energy efficient buildings and hybrid and electric cars are being launched. Through its eco-friendly policies UAE affirms that moving towards renewable energy sources will create more and better quality jobs, it will decrease its dependence on fossil fuels, oil and gas, hence it will reduce the disastrous impact of pollution on the health of its residents.

Credits- static1.squarespace.com, Gulf News, guardian.com, The NationalMashable.com, uae.panda.org