The United Arab Emirates: Environmental Pioneers for Sustainable Development

Environmental action has witnessed significant developments at the UAE's institutional level over four decades, starting with the Supreme Committee for Environment in 1975, to the Federal Environment Agency in 1993, and then the Ministry of Environment and Water in 2006. These developments reflect, on one hand, the progress of interest in environmental issues, locally and internationally, and on the other hand, the expansion in the perception of the value of environmental elements in the overall development in the UAE.

In 2016, the UAE leadership expanded the role of the Ministry of Environment and Water to manage all aspects related to international and domestic climate change affairs. The establishment of the newly named Ministry of Climate Change and Environment is an important milestone. It enhances the UAE’s efforts to address the issue of climate change, through the implementation of comprehensive policies and initiatives to mitigate and adapt to climate change and protect our unique environmental systems.

Sustainable Development is a concept that has been at the heart of the UAE’s development agenda for many years and is a theme that runs through Vision 2021 for the federal government and the development plans of the local emirates. This foresight enabled the country to be an advocate for and an active participant in the formulation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and an early adopter of the Sustainable Development Goals that the global community ratified at the United Nations in September 2015. Now, the time has come to take action on SDGs and to ensure that the global community moves rapidly from ideas to implementation, from planning to execution, and from debating and deliberating to using our inventive, entrepreneurial and creative capacities to accelerate towards a brighter future. In the UAE, a lot of important work has already begun.

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