Opportunities for Asia's Climate Leadership in 2023: The G20 and COP28

2023 could be a pivotal year for Asia’s global leadership on climate change. Asian countries will host major multilateral processes including the G7 in Japan, the G20 in India, and the 28th UN Climate Conference in the United Arab Emirates on behalf of the UN’s Asia-Pacific Group. What happens in Asia is critical: the region is home to over half the world’s population and accounts for more than half of annual global emissions. With immediate and ambitious action still needed to align with the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, what are the opportunities for Asian economies to reduce emissions while enhancing their economies, trade, and peoples’ livelihoods?

This event will bring together high-level representatives from India’s G20 presidency and the UAE COP28 presidency in conversation with the Hon. Dr. Kevin Rudd AC, President of the Asia Society Policy Institute and convener of the High-level Policy Commission on Getting Asia to Net Zero. It will feature opening remarks from India's G20 Sherpa, Amitabh Kant, and H.E. Lana Nusseibeh, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the United Arab Emirates to the United Nations in New York. The following discussion with Kant and Hana AlHashimi, the UAE's Chief Climate Negotiator, will explore how the G20 and COP28 agendas are respectively approaching opportunities for Asia’s climate leadership, as well as how these and other multilateral processes could bring the world closer to the level of ambition needed to prevent the most catastrophic impacts of climate change and protect the world's most vulnerable populations. 

Speakers

The Hon. Dr. Kevin Rudd AC is President and CEO of the Asia Society and inaugural President of the Asia Society Policy Institute. He served as 26th Prime Minister of Australia (2007 to 2010, 2013) and as Foreign Minister (2010 to 2012). He is Chair of the Board of the International Peace Institute in New York, and Chair of Sanitation and Water for All – a global partnership of government and non-governmental organizations dedicated to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 6. He is a Distinguished Fellow at Chatham House and the Paulson Institute, and a Distinguished Statesman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also a member of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization’s Group of Eminent Persons.

Ambassador Lana Zaki Nusseibeh has served as the United Arab Emirates Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations since September 2013. She has also served as Assistant Minister for Political Affairs since February 2021 and non-resident Ambassador of the UAE to Grenada since November 2017. In December 2021, the late His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan issued a Federal Decree granting her the rank of Minister. In January 2023, she was appointed as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation’s Special Envoy to the United Nations, and the European Union. A particular area of passion for her is the role of women in the promotion of peace and security. She was the President of the UN Women Executive Board in 2017 and led the UAE in working closely with UN Women to launch the Arab Women Military and Peacekeeping Programme in the UAE in 2019. She served as Vice-President of the UN’s 72nd General Assembly and was a Co-Chair of the Intergovernmental Negotiations on Security Council reform in the 72nd, 73rd, and 74th sessions.

Amitabh Kant is presently India’s G20 Sherpa and former CEO of NITI Aayog. Amitabh Kant is a governance reformer and a public policy change agent for India, having driven key reforms and initiatives during his tenure as the Chief Executive Officer of the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) (2016-2022) and the Secretary of the Department for Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) (2014-2016), Government of India. He has been a key driver of flagship national initiatives such as Startup India, Make in India, Incredible India, Kerala: God’s Own Country and the Aspirational Districts Program. These initiatives have repositioned India and Kerala and have widely been recognized as transformational.

Hana Al Hashimi is the UAE's Lead Climate Negotiator for COP27 & COP28. Before her appointment as the UAE’s Lead Climate Negotiator for COP27 and COP28, Hana AlHashimi was a senior adviser in the Office of the President of the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly. She led on environment and climate action, sustainable energy, frontier technologies, and information and communications technologies (ICTs). She also served as the liaison with the Group of 77 and China. Her prior experience includes project development for sustainable energy accelerators at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in Vienna, Austria, as well as management consulting for social businesses at Munich Advisors Group in Germany.