The Ministry of Municipality and Environment held on Wednesday a workshop on developing the national measurement, reporting and verification system for capacity building and stakeholder consultation in Qatar on climate change.

The workshop was attended by a number of State entities and officials from Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), based in South Korea.

Head of the climate change department at the ministry Abdulhadi Nasser al-Marri said Qatar gives great importance to the environment and has enacted laws and regulations necessary for its preservation and maintenance for future generations.

He added that this event with stakeholders is also related to the following-up with the project to develop the monitoring, reporting and verification system for the inventory of greenhouse gases in Qatar.

It is an important pillar of many projects and reports which will be submitted by Qatar within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement in order to highlight the State's efforts and to ensure that Qatar is a leader in this area at regional and global levels.

He called for co-operation with the ministry to achieve this project as it will become a major achievement for the State and at the same time to study the current situation in an integrated manner to address climate change.

He added that the ministry is exerting great efforts to achieve the environmental balance in light of the urban, economic and social progress witnessed by the State.

In addition, there are efforts made by local institutions and companies to follow the environmental laws that contribute to Qatar's efforts to address climate change.

In its fourth pillar on environmental development, Qatar National Vision 2030 emphasises the need to address local issues related to climate change and its potential impacts, he said.

He added that at the beginning of the year, the ministry, in co-operation with GGGI, organised a workshop to assess the potential of green growth in Qatar as the first project in the co-operation plan with the institute.

He said the issued report aims to promote economic growth and development while preserving and sustaining wealth and natural resources, protecting the environment and dealing with the effects of climate change.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the workshop, the Director of the Climate Change Department said that the department has a joint work programme with the Global Green Growth Institute on several issues related to climate change and environmental sustainability, including this workshop, which is attended by the partners of the ministry in the public and private sectors to discuss and study the system of measurement, reporting and verification and national experiences related to climate change.

He said that the workshop will make the proposed system realistic and applicable, adding that the workshop will end later with recommendations and a report after being discussed and the opinion on it by the participants.

Al-Marri reviewed Qatar's contributions in addressing climate change within the framework of the Paris Agreement and the 2012 UN Climate Change Conference that was hosted by Doha, stressing the need for all the contributions, information and reports of state's parties in relation to measurement, reporting, national verification and monitoring, which are provided every four years under the Paris Agreement, to be of high quality and comparable content within the mechanisms set up so that states choose their respective global or national systems.

He pointed out that Qatar's contributions towards reducing carbon emissions in the oil and industrial sectors, infrastructure, transport and others in the public and private sectors and making the environment one of the pillars of its national vision, confirm that it has taken the lead in this regard, and has become an experience that can share with others in international forums or national levels.

He also touched on the impact of climate change on agriculture, both plant and animal and food security in general, and stressed that Qatar has a lot of projects and national committees to overcome such influences using technology.

In this regard, al-Marri pointed to the initiative of planting 1mn trees, which was announced during the agricultural and environmental exhibition in Doha in March.

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