Eng Aisha Al Abdooli, Director, Green Development Department at the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment, presided over the meeting of the executive team for environmental footprint indicators. Having discussed the current status in addition to the latest initiatives and achievements, the team asked to review the draft strategy for reducing the UAE’s environmental footprint, prepared by the Global Footprint Network.

Eng Al Abdooli said: “We identified the challenges that need addressing most urgently and agreed on work priorities, with establishing an assessment mechanism as well as implementing unified data collection and evaluation methodology at the top of the agenda. The team approved development plans to achieve the national indicators across the emirates. In the near future, we will organize a series of specialized workshops to familiarize the employees of all the concerned authorities with the scientific methods of assessing the environmental footprint at the national level.”

Eng Al Abdooli also chaired the meeting of the executive team for air quality indicators, which agreed to commence the preparation of a national action plan. Its objectives include conducting an environmental impact assessment of the emissions, as well as establishing, reviewing and updating local and national legislative frameworks for air quality. Furthermore, the team will quantify the impact of air pollution on health and environment, and unify air quality assessment mechanisms. 

Outlining the results of the meeting, Eng Al Abdooli said: “We decided to initiate a comprehensive inventory of industrial sectors affecting the air quality in each emirate, and use the knowledge to implement emirate-specific projects and initiatives to reduce emissions. With these steps, we aim to contribute to increasing the air quality index to 90 percent by 2021.”

Eng Yusef Al Raisi, Director of Waste Management at the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment, presided over the meeting of the executive team for waste indicators that evaluated current status and reviewed a reporting guide on municipal solid waste.

He said: “The discussion addressed the most important challenges that the relevant authorities face in achieving the proposed national indicators as well as the ways to overcome them. The team decided to develop a national action plan based on three pillars: awareness and motivation, laws and legislation, and waste sorting and treatment projects.”

Based on relevant data from waste processing companies, the team will formulate standardized procedures for the whole waste management sector. We seek to unify waste management mechanisms across the emirates in accordance with best practices, updated population statistics, and the estimated impact of tourist and visitor numbers.

The Executive Teams… A working mechanism to achieve 52 national indexes..

It is worth mentioning that His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, has directed last October on the formation of the executive teams of the national agenda, consisting of 550 officials of different entities, sectors and levels, to work on the achievement of 52 national indexes to measure the country’s accomplishments in leadership, happiness and welfare of society, within 6 national priorities: health, education, economy, environment and infrastructure, community, safety and judiciary.

 The executive teams are tasked to develop integrated action plans that include initiatives of quick, medium and long-term impact, as well as suggesting joint sub-work teams to perform the tasks and initiatives, supervise the plan implementation using innovative tools, and coordinating with different government and international relevant entities, to ensure the implementation and performance results, and submitting periodic reports in this regards.