His Excellency Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment welcomed His Excellency António Guterres, UN Secretary General, Amina Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary General as well as more than 1,000 world-renowned political figures and climate action experts who are attending the meeting in Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Palace on June 30 and July 1.  

Among the leading climate action advocates joining the meeting are ministers from Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. Also among the participants are from senior state officials from countries most vulnerable to natural disasters, changing landscapes and resilience issues. Policy makers driving change, such as Miguel Arias Cañete, European Union Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, who is working with Member States to ensure that EU becomes climate neutral by 2050, is also attending the event.

In addition to international ministers and policy makers, leading experts, such as Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), who has made tackling the health impacts of climate change one of WHO’s five key priorities, plays a defining role at ADCM.

Given the New York Summit’s focus on youth, Her Excellency Shamma bint Suhail Faris Al Mazrui, UAE Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Jayathma Wickramanayake, the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth moderate a panel on day one.

Speaking on the preparations, His Excellency Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi said: “On June 30, our capital, in partnership with the United Nations, hosts a crucial conversation on the next steps global decision makers need to take on climate action. The Abu Dhabi Climate Meeting steers the course for the UN Climate Summit in September that is widely considered the next phase of global implementation of the Paris Agreement ratified by world nations in 2015.

“We are honored to serve as a global convener of the climate action discourse, and to be able to demonstrate the UAE’s ways of combating climate change to such a distinguished group of political leaders and experts. Only through acting cohesively, as a unified force, can we begin to undo the damage caused to our planet and seek solutions to the most pressing human crisis of our lifetime.”

Five high-level roundtable discussions and plenary sessions bring the world’s leading proponents of climate action together over the two-day event. The aim of the sessions is to set out and define the ways to tackle and prevent the catastrophic effects of climate change on the planet, its resources and its inhabitants.