Sheikha Shamma calls for balance between economic, environmental resilience

LONDON: The spread of coronavirus has given the world an opportunity to strike a balance between building economic and environmental resilience, the UAE’s Sheikha Shamma bint Sultan bin Khalifa Al-Nahyan said on Thursday during a webinar attended by Arab News.
“As governments, we must continue to encourage the diversification of GDP (gross domestic product) contribution and exploration of new and sustainable industries. As investors, we need to make more responsible decisions with our investments,” said Sheikha Shamma, who is CEO of Alliances for Global Sustainability and founder of the Circle of Hope foundation.
“As businesses, we must adopt technologies and business models that increase both financial and environmental efficiency. And as individuals, we must rethink our approach to these sources, support local producers and work toward creating a circular economy,” she added.
“My hope is that in these difficult times, we won’t just find ways to overcome challenges but seek out opportunities that pave the way toward a more sustainable future.”
The webinar, titled “The State of the Environment post-COVID,” was hosted by the UK-based Emirates Society.
It featured Lord Goldsmith, UK minister of state for the Pacific, international environment, climate and forests, and animal welfare, as well as Dominic Jermey, director general of the Zoological Society of London.
“The numbers really speak for themselves, and they reflect a litany of devastation,” Lord Goldsmith said. He highlighted how populations of animals have on average more than halved, with around 1 million species facing extinction within decades, while every minute on average the world loses 30 football pitches worth of forests.
“A third of marine animals are threatened with extinction and, if trends continue, we’re told that by 2050 the oceans will contain more plastic than fish, as measured by waves,” he said.
“We need economists, businesses and markets to develop tools fast to value things like nature and attach a cost to things that we need to phase out like emissions, deforestation, plastic pollution and so on.”
Jermey, who was Britain’s ambassador to the UAE from 2010 to 2014, called COVID-19 a “wake-up call.”
He added: “Those pathogens, that 75 percent of emerging infectious diseases that move from wildlife to people, are increasingly making that transition. We have to rethink, holistically, our relationship with nature.”