Cabinet approves Qatar-Jordan political consultations pact
Qatar - The Cabinet also decided to approve a draft Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of Jordan regarding bilateral political consultations, and a draft Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the fields of youth and sports between the Government of the State of Qatar and the Government of the Republic of Togo.
The Cabinet concluded its meeting by reviewing four reports and taking appropriate decisions thereon.
The reports are: the annual report on the achievements and work programs of the Qatar General Organization for Standardization and Metrology for 2024; the annual report on the results of the work of the National Committee for International Humanitarian Law; a report on the results of the participation of the State of Qatar's delegation headed by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change in the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity; and a report on the results of the visit of HE the Minister of Labour to Kenya and his participation in the meeting of the Qatari-Kenyan Joint Committee in the field of labour.
© Copyright Qatar Tribune. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Zawya
10-03-2025
- Zawya
BRICS' climate leadership aims hang on healing deep divides
LONDON - Ambitions by the BRICS group to take on a greater climate leadership role, building on success last month at United Nations nature talks, depend on the countries overcoming fractious politics and entrenched disagreements over money. As the United States has withdrawn from global efforts to combat climate change and, more generally, shifted its focus to promoting domestic interests, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - known collectively as the BRICS - are well-placed to influence the outcomes of high-profile meetings this year. They established their credentials by proposing a draft text that ensured agreement at the COP16 talks in February in Rome, a dozen sources told Reuters, potentially unlocking billions of dollars to help halt the destruction of ecosystems. "Now BRICS has been able to come together in this fashion, (it) will influence our discussions in other platforms going forward," Narend Singh, deputy minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment, for South Africa said. South Africa is boosting its profile as holder of the G20 presidency this year, while another BRICS member Brazil prepares to host COP30 climate talks in November. "BRICS can fill a space that needs to be filled at this moment in the multilateral negotiations," Brazil's chief negotiator at COP16, Maria Angelica Ikeda, said. Colombia's Susana Muhamad, president of the COP16 nature talks, said the BRICS countries were positioning to be "bridge builders". "They are trying to create this balance to represent the Global South in front of the far-right governments that are emerging in the U.S., Italy and Argentina," she said. "I understand there's a lot of countries wanting to join BRICS, because it's a way, if you have to confront something like the U.S., you are not alone." A British official present at the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said other countries needed to consider what the BRICS' more muscular approach meant for global institutions. DISPARATE GROUP But if BRICS' is to help fill the vacuum left by the United States under President Donald Trump, it has to address internal divisions over politics and finance. The group's refusal to assume the official financial obligations of donor countries could prove a stumbling block, Timo Leiter, a distinguished policy fellow at the London School of Economics, said. So far the middle-income BRICS have resisted demands from cash-strapped developed countries that they should share financial liability, complicating the quest for compromise at U.N. negotiations on climate funding and upcoming talks on development finance in Seville, Spain. Of the $25.8 billion in biodiversity-related financing in 2022, nearly three-quarters came from five sources: European Union institutions, France, Germany, Japan and the United States, data from the OECD showed. Diverging national interests among the BRICS, with Russia keen to maintain its sales of fossil fuels, while Brazil presses countries to decarbonise faster at COP30, may also prove sticking points. "They (the BRICS) are drastically different in terms of development stage and emissions trajectory," said Li Shuo, director of China Climate at Asia Society. "What ties them together is the geopolitical aspiration which leads to the question of can they agree to put forward an affirmative agenda." A test of the group's solidarity could be at a meeting in Bonn in June where countries begin to set out their COP30 negotiating positions, analysts said. The Financing for Development conference in Seville in June could also prove pivotal, with ministers set to discuss global sustainability goals and ongoing reform of the international financial system. "This will be the perfect entry point for BRICS to advance their aim of changing the global order and having a stronger say in the global financial system," Leiter said. "The new U.S. position is almost a gift." Shorter-term, the BRICS are likely to renew demands for more say in the running of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which disburses much of the world's biodiversity finance. GEF reform is a focus as richer countries cut development spending while demanding nature-rich countries do more to protect ecosystems such as the Amazon. "It's a problem that instead of having more money directed to nature and to biodiversity, we have countries updating their nuclear weapons, or buying more armaments," said Brazil's Ikeda. "At the same time, they're demanding from us, the mega-diverse countries more and more obligations." (Editing by Simon Jessop and Barbara Lewis)
Zawya
28-02-2025
- Zawya
Nations agree plan to finance nature protection at second attempt
A gathering of countries in Rome this week agreed a plan to generate $200 billion in finance a year by 2030 to halt and begin to reverse the destruction of the natural world. The U.N.'s COP16 talks on biodiversity began last October in Colombia but failed at that time to reach an agreement on key elements, including who would contribute, how the money would be gathered and who would oversee it. U.S. President Donald Trump is scaling back the involvement of the world's biggest economy in development finance, so the agreement late on Thursday night was a welcome boost for global deal-making. Led by negotiators from the so-called BRICS countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - the final deal saw delegates agree a plan to find at least $200 billion per year from a range of sources to protect nature. COP16 President and Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad heralded the agreement as a triumph for nature and for multilateralism in a year when the political landscape is increasingly fragmented and diplomatic frictions are growing. "From Cali to Rome we have sent a light of hope that still the common good, the environment and the protection of life and the capacity to come together for something bigger than the national interest is possible," she said. Delegates also agreed to explore whether a new biodiversity fund needed to be created, as requested by some developing countries, or whether an existing fund like the one run by the Global Environment Facility would be enough. The GEF has provided more than $23 billion to thousands of nature projects in the past 30 years. "Everyone with the spirit of compromise made concessions, and in general for developing countries the result was very positive," Maria Angelica Ikeda, director of the Department of Environment at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Reuters as the plenary wrapped up on Thursday night. "I come out of the meeting happy and optimistic." The need for action has only increased in recent years, with the average size of wildlife populations down 73% since 1970, data from the WWF's 2024 Living Planet Report shows. The spectre of aid cuts was also felt in negotiating rooms, fuelling frustration among some countries from Brazil to Egypt and Panama that rich nations were not fulfilling their obligations to deliver grant money. Zoological Society of London's policy head Georgina Chandler urged governments to fulfil their commitment to $30 billion per year by 2030 to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. The deal in Rome helps lay out the steps needed to implement the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) deal, agreed in 2022 and which committed countries to a range of environmental targets. Countries also agreed a set of technical rules for monitoring progress towards the GBF and secured a commitment for countries to publish a national report on their biodiversity plans for the COP17 nature talks. The talks come at the start of a busy year for international climate diplomacy as countries meet at various events to discuss plastics pollution, preserving the oceans and meeting global development goals, ahead of the COP30 climate talks in November. (Editing by Simon Jessop, William Maclean)
The National
28-02-2025
- The National
Countries seal critical $200 billion deal to save nature
Top environmental delegates worked late into the night on Thursday to seal critical negotiations and pave the way to secure $200 billion a year for biodiversity protection by 2030. The gavel came down with no objections at the extended UN Biodiversity talks in Rome, held at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation office. The room erupted in applause as the summit concluded, following stalled negotiations at Cop16 in Colombia, which failed to reach a resolution by the end of 2024. Experts say the progress comes at a critical time for environmental negotiations as global political uncertainty hangs over climate funding. "The US pulling funding internationally not only from environment initiatives but development funding more broadly, including the defunding and shutting down of USAID, is very unhelpful and certainly hinders progress on biodiversity and climate issues." Audrey Wagner, a researcher who led Oxford University's delegation to Cop16, told The National. However, those at the conference understood the urgency of the task at hand - to prevent further biodiversity loss at a time when it's estimated that one million of the world's species teeter on the brink of extinction. Speaking to the media in the early hours of Friday morning, Cop16 President Susana Muhamad, emphasised the importance of what she has called a historic moment for biodiversity, saying: "We are seeing so much political change globally, where actually fragmentation, and conflict is increasing." Ms Muhamad, who until recently held the post of minister of environment in Columbia, added that the gathering had "sent a light of hope, that still the common good, the environment, the protection of life and the capacity to come together for something bigger than each national interest is possible." Three years ago, 196 countries agreed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The framework includes the closing of the biodiversity finance gap, which stands at $700 billion per year. Among the 23 targets to be achieved by 2030 include 30 per cent conservation of land, sea and inland waters, 30 per cent restoration of degraded ecosystems, and halving the introduction of invasive species. This week, the Cop16 parties agreed on a way forward in terms of getting the funds mobilised with a view to close the global biodiversity finance gap to tackle the issue of biodiversity loss. Nature groups have applauded the Cop presidency for delivering a hard-fought resolution this week on biodiversity finance. Efraim Gomez, Global Policy Director at WWF International, has warned, however, that this necessary step is not sufficient, and it is now that the hard work starts. While his colleague Lin Li, senior director for Global Policy and Advocacy at WWF International, shared that "What's left now is still an urgent need to mobilise funding from all sources – public, private, domestic and philanthropic – to ensure we reach the $200 billion a year committed by 2030.' In a bid to accelerate these efforts, parties also called for an international dialogue between Environment and Finance Ministers from both developed and developing nations. Another notable achievement hailed as a success was the establishment of the Cali Fund, which was first agreed upon in Colombia during the first part of the conference. The fund is designed to harness critical financial resources from companies using digitally sequenced genetic data. While it has yet to receive contributions, the fund marks a significant victory for Indigenous Peoples and local communities, who are set to receive 50 per cent of its resources to support local biodiversity initiatives. Next on the UN climate agenda, is the UNFCCC Cop30, in Belem, Brazil. Taking place in November, this will be the first Cop to be held in the Amazon. Cop30 is the meeting of the conference of parties under the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Conference. It is tasked with supporting the global response to the threat of climate change. The UNCCD (United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification) Cop17, will be held in Mongolia in 2026. The next Convention on Biological Diversity, Cop17, will be held in Armenia in 2026.
