Young people and the private sector have key roles to play if the world is to achieve global climate-change goals, speakers told delegates attending the COP26 Reflections: Accelerating the Path Forward event held today (18 January) at Expo 2020 Dubai.
Describing COP26 as “truly a private sector COP”, Sanda Ojiambo, CEO and Executive Director of the UN Global Compact, set the tone at the SDG Media Zone session, which was hosted by the #UNHub and held during Expo 2020 Dubai’s Global Goals Week.
The SDG Media Zone is hosted by the United Nations, in collaboration with the PVBLIC Foundation, and aims to take the conversation on advancing the Sustainable Development Goals out of the policy sphere and into the public discourse. In addition to Ojiambo, speakers at today’s event also included Alexis Lecanuet, Regional Managing Director for the Middle East at Accenture (Digital Services Partner of Expo 2020 Dubai).
While expressing disappointment that no consensus has been reached on climate financing, the private sector has a real role to play, Sanda Ojiambo believed. “I thought the private sector was bold, I thought the private sector was ambitious. The private sector was actually asking governments and policy leaders to be very clear about what their ambitions were, what the goals and targets would be, to support country efforts and country actions,” she added.
She went on to emphasise the UN Global Compact’s continuing work with global companies that have made a strong commitment to addressing the climate crisis.
Referencing the findings of the UN Global Compact – Accenture CEO Sustainability Study, Lecanuet highlighted the private sector’s commitment to solving the climate crisis. According to the global survey of approximately 1,200 CEOs, 80 countries have committed to reducing net emissions by 30 per cent by 2030, with USD 96 million already pledged. Lecanuet said an additional challenge in achieving these goals would be financing in the global south.
Both speakers went on to emphasise how crucial collaboration between sectors and stakeholders will be to achieve COP26’s goals. Lecanuet called for “enhanced collaboration to strengthen the private-sector contribution to the national goal”, while Ojiambo said “the climate crisis is not one where any one sector or any one industry is going to solve it. It is a concerted partnership between private sector, governments, the UN and civil societies.”
The crucial role of young people was also raised, with Lecanuet noting that the younger generation now entering the workforce is more engaged with sustainability and interested in the vision of company leaders to achieve sustainable goals.
Having highlighted how young people have been adversely impacted by the pandemic, with the disruption to education as well as job opportunities, Ojiambo said: “I think we have a fantastic group of youth advocates who are not afraid to speak truth to power about how the climate crisis has been tackled and what needs to be done. I think there's a huge opportunity to listen very closely to those voices and actually make change. We are sitting here making decisions for actually another generation. And I think it's very important to have that generation as the actors and shapers in the discussion. It’s important to look at both the future of work and what the future of business looks like through a different generational lens.”
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