Queen Mary makes its mark on this year’s climate summit in Dubai

Queen Mary at COP28

The Queen Mary delegation was at COP28 to contribute their expertise to the conference. 

Speaking at COP28 

Our team of experts spoke at seven different events: 

• Dr Franziska Arnold-Dwyer spoke at A Roadmap to Resilience: The Strategic Imperative for Insurers to Lead on Climate Adaptation.
• Professor Benjamin Neimark spoke on War, Carbon and Infrastructure: Conflict and the Military Emissions Gap. 
• Dr Fernando Barrio spoke at two events – one on Technology, AI and Innovation for Transformative Climate Action in Sustainable Agri-food Systems and the other on Green Digital Skills, Digitalization and AI for Climate Action. 
• Dr Heather McMullen spoke at an event titled: No Climate Justice Without Gender Equality and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. 
• Thiago Jesus and Piratá Waurá spoke at two events – People's Palace Projects co-hosted a session on How Creativity Can Build Resilient Communities, and spoke on Ancestral Wisdom Driving Low Carbon, Climate Resilient Futures. 

Commenting on COP28 

Our team of experts captured their thoughts during the conference in a series of videos. These can be found on our social media channels. 

In addition, Dr Barrio and Professor Neimark shared their post-COP28 reflections: 

• Dr Fernando Barrio – COP28: Achievements, Pitfalls, and the Climate Finance for Vulnerable Nations. 
• Professor Benjamin Neimark – How to assess the carbon footprint of a war. 
• Dr Franziska Arnold-Dwyer was interviewed by Insurance ERM - COP28: what did it mean for insurers and Valor Economico (article forthcoming).

People’s Palace Projects at COP28 

People’s Palace Projects, a subsidiary of Queen Mary, was also present at COP28. They were part of a coalition of artists and cultural voices from across the world that are uniting to call for climate negotiators to put cultural heritage, arts and creatives industries at the heart of climate action. This led to the establishment at COP28 of the Group of Friends of Culture-Based Climate Action. 

Over 30 Ministers or government representatives, inter-governmental organisations including UNESCO and the European Union, and a large delegation of committed cultural advocates from across the globe attended the historic inaugural meeting of the Group of Friends of Culture-Based Climate Action, co-chaired by the United Arab Emirates and Brazil, recognising the key role of culture for transformative climate action. 

Countries that have joined the Group of Friends include: UAE, Brazil (co-chairs), and Bahrain, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mali, Malta, Pakistan, Serbia, Senegal, Seychelles, Spain, Syria and Uganda.  

The participants unanimously adopted the Emirates Declaration on Culture Based Climate Action. This visionary Declaration paves the way for the adoption of a Joint Work Decision on Culture-Based Climate Action at COP29 and subsequently to a related action plan ahead of COP30.