The United Arab Emirates, represented by the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, participated in the first Buildings and Climate Global Forum 2024, which was recently held in the French capital, Paris.

The forum brought together ministers and officials responsible for decarbonisation and resilience in the construction, real estate, and construction sector for the first time after the COP28 conference.

It was co-organised by France and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), with the support of the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction.

The Ministry's participation was represented by attending the first global ministerial segment to endorse a joint ministerial declaration that defines the common principles and cooperation framework for global efforts to achieve the goal of "Near-zero emission and resilient buildings by 2030". Thus, the UAE announced its joining the international cooperation to decarbonise the building sector and enhance its resilience.

Eng Nusaiba Al Marzouqi, Director of Studies and Research and Chief Innovation Officer at MoEI, actively participated in the high-level sessions accompanying the forum by highlighting the country's efforts in developing clear and measurable methodologies to reduce the carbon footprint in the building and construction sector and the mechanism for updating the targets of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) based on the capabilities of the current situation to be a model to be followed by other countries.

The forum followed the annual meeting of the World Green Building Council Committee, which the Ministry attended as a member representing the UAE.

The meeting aimed to follow up on the implementation of the Council's strategies, activities, and initiatives, the latest of which is Buildings Breakthrough, and to review and approve the Buildings Global Status Report 2023.