The COP27 climate change summit, slated for November in Sharm el-Sheikh, will work hard to achieve climate targets with a realistic approach towards sustainable development goals (SDGs).
This statement by Dr Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High Level Champion for Egypt, came during Tuesday’s session of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
The session themed ‘Message from Egypt’. AIIB President JinLiqun and Egypt’s Ambassador to China Mohamed el-Badri attended the event.
Egypt is dealing with climate goals as one of the UN SDGs – fighting poverty, achieving growth, providing food, water, energy, job opportunities, education and health services, Mohieldin said, adding that Egypt sees that investing in climate action cannot be isolated from investment in human resources.
In this context, Mohieldin referred to China’s experience in fighting extreme poverty by 2020 as a top-priority development goal.
“China worked on this goal alongside reducing emissions and this is an example of a holistic approach to climate change,” Mohieldin added.
With regard to climate targets, Mohieldin said that the world is facing a big challenge in reducing emissions by around 60 per cent. “We can see in the news extreme climate events, record high temperatures, dried-up rivers, drought and the consequences of deviating from the path to achieving climate goals,” he said.
COP27 will focus on all climate action dimensions, including mitigation, adaptation and resilience, dealing with loss and damage, and finding out the best ways of financing and investing in climate projects, he added.
Egypt is working on five axes towards COP27.
Firstly, Egypt aims to bring together the most practicable projects proposed by the five major regional roundtables and highlight them during COP27.
Secondly, this country will link local development action to global efforts through the National Initiative for Smart Green Projects.
Thirdly, planning according to national budgets and involvement of the private sector, civil society and financing entities will bring up the best finance tools and investment opportunities in climate projects.
Mohieldin mentioned the importance of highlighting the efforts of local bodies in each governorate in climate and development action by submitting practicable, smart and sustainable projects to fulfill Egypt 2030 Vision.
Fourthly, the localisation of climate and development action will enhance the local dimension of development projects.
Lastly, it will be necessary to scale up the private sector, international and regional financing entities and development banks in financing climate projects and link national budgets to SDGs, Mohieldin said.
