Thousands of activists from the Arab region and around the world are planning to stage a march for climate actions on Saturday in Doha of Qatar, the host of the ongoing two-week UN climate talks, a statement by an environmentalist group said here Wednesday.

The march, first of its kind taking place in the Arab region, is supported by newly-formed Arab Youth Climate Movement, as well as other regional and international environmentalist NGOs such as TckTckTck, the releaser of the statement, Climate Action Network and IndyACT.

Activists from 15 Arab countries and territories, including Egypt, Libya and Qatar itself, are going to call on their leaders to further reduce carbon emissions during the first climate negotiations ever held in the Middle East.

The choosing of Qatar as the host is a controversy as the region is known for its vast reserves of fossil energy, from which most of the CO2 in the atmosphere comes.

Particularly, oil-rich Qatar has recently replaced the United States as the biggest per-capita emitter.

In addition, Gulf countries in the past seemed to only care about protecting its oil and gas reserves from being affected by any climate treaties.

Although Gulf governments have rolled out some green initiatives in recent years, such as Qatar and the UAE's green building codes, it will take time for their efforts to take effect and get recognized. Endi

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