DUBAI - Mohamed Zmerli, Official Representative of Tunisia in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said that his country has set a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2030, and was one of the first countries to announce its intention to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

However, Zmerli stressed in a statement to Emirates News Agency (WAM) on the sidelines of COP28, that this goal is conditional on financing and technology.

Regarding renewable energy in Tunisia, he said that it constitutes only about 4 percent, and this lays a burden on the state budget and poses an environmental problem, pointing out that the goal is to reach 30 percent renewable energy in 2030.

Zimrali said that the first Global Stocktake that COP28 will witness since the ratification of the Paris Agreement in 2015 makes the current conference one of the most important editions and a turning point, indicating that this stocktake will provide a picture of the extent of progress that the world has achieved, and of the difficulties that the world has faced, in addition to the measures that must be taken to implement the agreement.

He said, “We do not have the suitable stocktake mechanisms in the absence of indicators, and therefore we are betting that COP28 can come up with indicators for adaptation to climate change.”