Eng. Khalid Al Falih, Minister for Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources, is leading Saudi Arabia's delegation to COP 23 in Bonn with the intent to participate to move forward the negotiations to the next stage in order to ensure balanced implementation of the historic Paris Agreement at the United Nations Climate Change Conference. "Saudi Arabia hopes that the "era of implementation" marked by COP 23 will further clarify the frameworks that will make the agreement to provide the support for all nations to achieve their climate-change goals," said Al-Falih in his foreword which was posted on the official Kingdom of Saudi Arabia website www.ksa-climate.com for COP 23. In addition to Al-Falih, the Saudi delegation comprises officials and subject matter experts representing various Kingdom entities. COP 23 is taking place from November 6 – 17, 2017 at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) headquarters with Fiji holding the current Presidency of COP. While the Paris Agreement has already entered into force, the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement (APA) and the permanent subsidiary bodies continues to work towards completing the work program under the Paris Agreement, which was agreed together with the adoption of the Agreement in 2015. "Saudi Arabia will actively endeavor to ensure the outcomes of this work will be ready for consideration at COP 24 in Poland in 2018," he said. Al-Falih also stressed that oil exporting countries such as Saudi Arabia are an integral part of the solution to tackle the challenges of climate change and its adverse economic impacts. He said the Paris Agreement represented an opportunity to respond to the potential threat of climate change to economies and societies globally. He noted that Saudi Arabia is one of the world's top oil and gas producers, fueling economies around the world and helping people achieve a better standard of living. The Kingdom's track record of reliability is being matched by its emphasis on R&D and innovation to make the production and use of its resources more sustainable and energy efficient, while enabling the contributions of all viable energy resources. "While the world is working on the suite of solutions to deliver more energy with fewer and ultimately no GHG emissions, Saudi Arabia is confident that the seeds planted and nurtured through this and previous COP sessions will continue to flourish and bear fruit through communication, cooperation and innovation to which we all wholeheartedly commit" he said.
