Maintaining a sustainable environment is vital for allocating and achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). SDGs are vital. The United Arab Emirates has significantly contributed to the SDGs accomplishment to preserve the environment and balance the social and economic factors (Fukudaa and Ouchidab, 2020). It signifies that the goals should be integrated in order to achieve equilibrium in society and transform it for better living on the planet.
Similar to other countries, the UAE is highly exposed to climate change, including damages from sea-level rise, weather events, and others; thus, the government placed this issue at the top of its priorities. UAE is increasingly concerned with climate change as it is at risk of facing severe droughts, warmer temperatures, and flood (Fukudaa and Ouchidab, 2020). As a result, the state decided to address this problem by actively participating in Vision programs aimed at achieving SDGs.
Due to the issue’s increased alertness, the country reacted quickly to implement changes to improve the situation. Primarily, the UAE gave a new title to the Ministry of Environment and Water. Now it is named the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment so that it deals more with the global warming problems (Vu, 2017).
Second, UAE established a program according to which the clean energy sources will be used to generate at least 24% of energy. Moreover, the state council decided to ally with the private sector to conduct research related to energy preservation. At the global level, the country partnered with the U.S. to launch initiatives to save the global energy market.
In addition, the UAE decided to draw the public’s attention to notify them and urge them to participate in achieving this SDG. As a part of this venture, the government held awareness campaigns to promote conscious behavioral patterns in order to conserve the environment and its natural resources. In May 2014, they hosted an event for the members of the government, the private sector, and other stakeholders (Fukudaa and Ouchidab, 2020). The gathering’s objective was to create a sense of awareness and urge the participants to take actions for fighting climate change.
Another step towards achieving the goal related to climate change was launching environmental education programs, which have become one of the most eminent sustainable development constituents. The primary objective of this initiative was the inclusion of environmental-related content into the school curricula. Moreover, the UAE created the “Our Generation” plan in 2016 to advance school programs aiming to focus more on environmental awareness (Vu, 2017).
This idea was supposed to encourage students to take part in ecological harm reduction events. As a result of these modules, sustainable schools emerged to introduce more extended programs related to climate change, and new green curricula were introduced to the children. What is more, conferences concerning sustainable development goals were held throughout the last five years in order to negotiate and highlight how the UAE can fight climate change.
Most notably, the UAE became one of the states which validated the Paris Agreement. The ratification took place in September 2015, and the agreement was presumed to raise the usage of energy and water preservation measures. Moreover, they started to control gas emissions and invested billions of dollars in the decarbonization to establish a green transition. It was identified that the state reduced gas utilization by 78% since 1995 (Vu, 2017). The technologies implemented are still being advanced in order to use more natural resources as energy drivers, which can mitigate the impacts of global warming and create a safe environment for the population.
To conclude, it seems essential to state that the UAE has significantly contributed to SDGs’ development and achievement. One of the prioritized SDGs is climate change, which poses a potential threat on the local, regional, state, and global levels. Therefore, the country made multiple attempts to prevent global warming and raise environmental awareness. Creating educational programs, gas emissions, energy, and water conservation initiatives has become part of the plan. All in all, these programs have incredibly helped the government to motivate society to fight the common enemy.
Reference List
Fukudaa, K. and Ouchidab, Y. (2020) ‘Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the environment: does CSR increase emissions?’, Energy Economics, 92, pp. 1-10. Web.
Vu, N.A. (2017) ‘Grassroots Environmental activism in an authoritarian context: the trees movement in Vietnam’, Voluntas, 28, pp. 1180–1208. Web.