Naseibah Almarzooqi
Facilitator
Dr. Fernanda Lonardoni (Moderator)
Head of Country Programme, Bahrain/UAE - UN-Habitat
*Refer to the pdf attached for the full list of Speakers
This event presents the work of the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC) in developing the Global ABC Roadmap for Buildings and Construction, 2020-2050, towards a zero-emission, efficient, and resilient buildings and construction sector. The work was contributed by the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure covering 22 countries.
What does this mean for the next steps towards a sustainable buildings and construction sector in the Arab region? This roadmap is an interim step on that pathway. It is meant to help all countries map themselves relative to their development phase in each of the eight activities. The roadmap also provides guiding principles for countries’ individual roadmaps and policy designs, which is an essential ingredient to their next step of designing individual country roadmaps.
A distinctive feature of this roadmap is its response to the diverse energy-related status quo in the buildings and construction sector across the region and across the eight activities structuring each Global ABC roadmap. Different starting points call for different strategies and focal points. For this reason, this event presents the best practices for early starters, moderately advanced, or advanced countries. The means Arab countries can pick the most suitable guidance relative to how advanced they evaluate themselves relative to an activity.
It is understood that all Arab countries know best about their buildings and construction culture, processes, and stakeholders. Therefore, we would like to stress that while trying to reflect the region’s diversity in the best possible way, the event should not be understood as presenting any kind of prescriptive “that is the way to do it” activities. Its purpose is to present a non-exclusive menu of instruments and actions, underpinned by best practice examples, thus providing input into the strategy and decision-making process that every Arab country needs to adapt to their individual context.
After this event, providing guidance and input to the whole Arab region’s transformation of the buildings and construction sector, which is ongoing and with many activities ahead, it takes note of the different degrees of maturity an Arab country may have reached relative to each of the eight activities. Depending on how advanced a country evaluates itself relative to an activity—early starter, moderately advanced, or advanced—it can pick the most suitable roadmap guidance.
In developing such individual roadmaps, Arab countries will be able to consider their individual context and reality (i.e. climate, building culture, local industry, and economy), existing policy framework, and other resources.
The following are the objectives of the roadmap:
• Act as a blueprint for the Arab countries to initiate, support, and complement their ambitions to decarbonise the built environment through 2050: The measures and activities presented in the report should be picked up by the different Arab countries and could support their strategic planning planning for a decarbonized built environment through 2050.
• Reflect the diversity of the status of the sustainable and resilient buildings and construction sector throughout the Arab region: The scales, stages, and priorities in the different Arab countries are highly diverse. Many countries are still in the early stages of integrating energy efficiency and renewable energy in the buildings and construction sector while others have already implemented well-functioning instruments that allow for the transition towards a decarbonised built environment. To respond to this wide range, the roadmap for the Arab region distinguishes the region between early, moderate, and advanced countries. This method is used not to rank the countries but rather to reflect the different stages and offer guidance per activity with proposed steps.
• Follow the methodology applied in the other regional Global ABC roadmaps to complement the series: Per the Global ABC regional roadmap methodology, this roadmap focuses on the eight activities that have a major impact on the decarbonisation of the buildings sector.