Your Excellency, dear Minister, Dear friends and colleagues,
 
These two days have hosted very rich discussions. Let me first thank the UAE for their generous hospitality.
 
Thank you also for your contributions and concrete suggestions on how to increase ambition and accelerate climate action.
 
Your presence sends an enormously powerful signal that we are all together in our battle against climate change.
 
Be assured that the Secretary-General and I deeply appreciate this commitment.
 
The Secretary-General reminded us that we need to do much more. He also indicated the path to achieve the needed ambition:
 
We need to end investments in new coal plants and move quickly towards renewable energy.

We need to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and tax carbon to align investments with meeting the goal of keeping the increase of the global temperature at 1.5 degrees.
 
 
[Messages heard in Abu Dhabi]
 
In these 2 days you have reflected on how more ambition can be achieved and on what are your plans to enhance NDCs.
 
This has been a very useful barometer to assess how much has been done and what more needs to be done.
 
Some messages have become clear.
 
NDCs and long-term strategies are complementary instruments and should be mutually supportive to each other.
 
The targets that need to be set for 2020, 2030 and 2050 need to represent a credible pathway of achieving resilience and carbon neutrality.
 
National plans need to be specific on which sectors need to be addressed and how.
 
Whether is transport, energy or forests we need clear plans that can meet the goals.
 
No plan will be implementable if it does not address the social dimension of climate change.
 
Climate action can lead to better health, to better jobs and can pave the way to sustainable development.
 
But to do so, we have to ensure that no one is left behind and that the policies in place deal with those that will be impacted by climate action.
 
And national leadership will have to support local action and create enabling conditions and to ensure that financial flows reach the doers at the local level during the whole project life cycle
 
And no plan will be implementable without finance and capacity building
 
The process of updating NDC and preparing long term strategies should be integrated into domestic development planning exercise.
 
You also reminded us that we must raise ambition in both mitigation as well as in adaptation.
 
Mainstreaming resilience and adaptation into decision making processes of the public and the private sectors is crucial to bridge the existing financing gap.
 
Finance needs to be addressed. Once again, we were reminded of the urgency of the 100 billion commitment by 2020 that was agreed before Paris and of the importance of replenishing the GCF to make climate finance truly accessible and effective.
 
As you very well expressed, we need to address the challenges faced by those most vulnerable to climate change, who are those that have the lowest GHG emissions and contributed the least to the problem
 
Private sector was here and shared their willingness and readiness to be part of the solution. There needs to be the right political signal for them to move the resources at the scale needed.
 
We heard yesterday that climate action can be the “business” of everyone. Climate action impacts everyone’s daily life in a very immediate way. Rethinking the way we produce our food or our relationship with the land, the water, the sea, the oceans can deliver more than one third of the solutions needed.
 
Today, we devoted a long session led by World Health Organization to deeper our understanding of the linkages between health and climate action.
 
The Ministerial Health Round Tablesaw a very successful discussion, with Ministers, experts, Mayors, representatives from agencies and philanthropies stating in no uncertain terms that this is one of the key issues for their institutions, an issue which affects all people in the world in many different ways.
 
We heard from the Global Covenant of Mayors that they will support the efforts of our coalition on Social and Political drivers to get cities behind the clean and safe air commitment, the Clean Air Fund announcing they will work on rallying support for the finance effort the Summit seeks to deliver, and many countries already expressing their interest on working on the issue of air quality with us.
 
A healthy world will only be possible in a 1.5 scenario.
 
That climate action is the business of everyone holds particularly true for the young people who will need to solve this issue.
 
We have placed a great emphasis in the participation of youth in this meeting. The UAE has supported this generously.
 
As we look ahead to the Climate Action Summit, we are determined to ensure our young people continue to play a crucial role.
 
That’s why the Secretary-General is convening a Youth Climate Summit on September 21 to both recognize and empower our young people.
 
The Youth Climate Summit will bring together young innovators, entrepreneurs, change-makers and activists to showcase their solutions, exchange ideas.
 
It will be an opportunity for our young climate leaders to take their place on the global stage with decision-makers across governments, business and civil society.
 
As we end this meeting here in Abu Dhabi, I’m thrilled to share that applications for youth to attend the Climate Youth Summit open today. 
 
I’m also thrilled to announce that the UN will offer over 100 ‘Green Tickets’ – these are funded opportunities to participate in the Climate Youth Summit, including carbon neutral travel to and from New York.
 
You can apply through our Climate Action Summit website under the Youth tab. 
 
We want as many young people to know about this as possible, so please help us spread the work by following our Youth Envoy at @UNYouthEnvoy and retweeting and sharing Jayathma’s posts.
 
From now to the Summit in September, we have a big lift ahead.
 
We need to mobilize more partners to join the initiatives emerging from our work.
 
In the synergies sessions that have finished right now, you have identified where we are so far and where are the gaps we need to address.
 
More importantly, we are starting to see solutions that will help us lower the financial and social costs of the transition to a resilient and carbon neutral world
 
From now to September, we need to concentrate in those actions that can have more impact. They need to be brought up to scale to unleash their full potential.
 
 
We just need the determination. I invite you to bring it to the summit in September and share your plans of how you will contribute to meet our common goal.
 
Thank you