According to UNDP chief Achim Steiner, the COP28 UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai, which drew 97,000 attendees, shouldn’t serve as a template for future UN climate conferences.
In a Monday interview with DPA in Dubai, he stated, “I think these conferences have gotten too big.”
Yet Steiner stated that he didn’t want to advise people to skip the event.
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“And that’s not our biggest problem, in my opinion, if a nation like the United Arab Emirates can organise a conference of that size.”
But keep in mind that increasing conference attendance entails significant work, financial outlay, and time commitment.
According to Steiner, it might get harder to locate host nations that can house about 100,000 people and serve as a venue for conferences.
Steiner commented on the roughly 200 countries debating whether or not to formally declare the end of the fossil fuel era. “It will be very important to see whether this conference ultimately manages to recognise that the age of fossil fuels is over,” Steiner remarked.
He predicted there would be disagreements on phrasing and timetables.
But in the end, Steiner stated, “it’s about realising that our energy and transportation systems won’t be dependent on fossil fuels in the future.”
The decarbonization of our economies is now inevitable, he continued, and everyone on the planet is aware of this.
The largest UN Climate Change Conference ever held is being held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, this year.
Approximately 52,000 state delegates, observers, and nearly 4,000 journalists were among the 97,372 individuals registered on the UN Climate Change Secretariat website.
The meeting is now about twice as big as the one that took place in Egypt, which had the largest climate conference to date with about 50,000 attendees.
