Minister Shahid participates in the virtual side event hosted by the Maldives in collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdulla Shahid, today participated in the Virtual Side-event, "Building Resilience to Future Pandemics and Climate Change through the Protection of Nature," hosted by the Maldives in collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). During this event, he was joined by the Minister of Environment, Dr. Hussain Rasheed Hassan and panelists from the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Maldives. This side event explored the urgent need to build resilience to future pandemics and highlighted the paramount importance of simultaneously addressing the related issues of climate change and loss of biodiversity, through good policy development and the implementation of holistic environmental conservation strategies.
During this event, Minister Shahid delivered a keynote address on the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on climate change. He noted the pandemic’s disruptive impact on global economies and how it has transformed our way of life in unprecedented ways. He noted how vaccines are being produced in record time and that the selfless sacrifice by frontline workers to flatten the curve showed the ability of human ingenuity and aptitude to prevail over any challenge that we face. He further spoke about how this pandemic has taught us the interconnected nature of the global community and that the need for effective multilateralism has never been greater or more urgent than today.
Minister Shahid urged that we cannot let the "business as usual" mindset continue when it comes to climate action. He also highlighted that the protection of nature is key to averting calamities and to creating a more resilient global community. Finally, he called for the creation of transformative changes that support both health and climate change action to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement.
This event was hosted by the Embassy of Maldives in Thailand in partnership with the Ministry of Environment of Maldives and IUCN at the sidelines of the seventy-seventh session of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). UN-ESCAP is one of the five regional commissions under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Economic and Social Council.