Qatar highlights national strategy to address global warming

QNAGenevaQatar has adopted a national programme for food security and a strategy that aims to secure the country’s food needs in a bid to reduce the impact of climate change, Noor al-Sada, second secretary at Qatar’s permanent delegation to Geneva, said yesterday.  Al-Sada was addressing the 28th session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) within the article on human rights and global warming. Al-Sada said the national programme focused on four  sectors: agriculture, water, renewable energy and food manufacturing. She said that Qatar had paid special attention nationally and globally to the issue of global warming and its repercussions, noting that Qatar National Vision 2030 had reaffirmed in its fourth pillar the need to deal with domestic environmental issues related to global warming and its prospective effects. Taking into consideration the relationship between global warming and its effect on human rights, al-Sada added, each country must shoulder its responsibilities and duties established in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in protecting the earth and its inhabitants from that phenomenon. Al-Sada wished  that global talks would boost the spirit of solidarity and co-operation among all parties so as to enhance efforts, aimed at putting in place fairer and more convenient measures that limit the effect of global warming. Meanwhile, the European Union has  submitted its formal promise on how much it will cut greenhouse gas emissions to the UN ahead of climate change talks starting in November and called on the US and China to follow its lead. The European Union is the first major economy to agree its position before the talks in Paris aimed at seeking a new worldwide deal on global warming. “We expect China, the US and the other G20 countries in particular to follow the European Union and submit their contributions by the end of March,” Miguel Arias Canete, climate and energy Commissioner, told reporters after a meeting of EU environment ministers in Brussels. French Energy Minister Segolene Royal said Europe was taking up its responsibilities as host of the 2015 Paris climate conference, which begins on Nov 30. “A very important step was taken today,” she said. “This is a decisive, historic stage.” She had said on Thursday agreement had to be reached by March 20 at the latest. The EU’s official contribution will be a target of an at least 40% cut in emissions by 2030, compared to levels emitted in 1990. The target was set at a summit in October last year, but ministers still had to agree on the details of the formal submission to the UN. The target has to be achieved domestically rather than through offsets that allow member states to buy into carbon-cutting schemes outside Europe.