A SIGNIFICANT part of Egypt’s international contacts regarding the world climate summit it will host in Sharm el-Sheikh in November this year has been devoted to laying down the brickwork for achieving the broadest possible accord on mitigation, adaptation, finance and implementation given that these four issues constitute the core of the aspired climate action especially at the multilateral level. While taking part in the UNFCCC conference that convened in Bonn on June 6-8, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri highlighted this approach, stressing in meetings he held with regional groups that by adopting this approach, Egypt aims to further the prospects of transforming climate commitments and promises into realities on the ground. Action at combined national and multilateral levels represents the key to bringing the world closer to the efficient utilisation of climate commitments in pursuing all other goals of climate action, including mitigation and adaptation in the foremost.
A promising sign in the course of current climate action in the lead-up to COP27 summit has been the extensive participation in the work of the Bonn conference, given that it was the first international gathering on climate change since Glasgow’s COP26 summit and the one event that comes just four months ahead of the Sharm el-Sheikh summit. In particular, the Bonn meetings signalled growing international keenness on drawing up a widely agreed upon understanding on the topics that the forthcoming Sharm el-Sheikh summit would address, as so UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa noted while speaking to the opening session of the Bonn Climate meeting. Such extensive participation provided a clear indication of a commendable commitment to ensuring the comprehensiveness of multilateral consultations ahead of the COP27 summit – a process which Egypt has on many occasions and at various levels expressed eagerness to pursue.
Widened international consultations ahead of COP27 summit would highly factor in enabling the Sharm el-Sheikh event to reflect the shared concerns of the sweeping majority of world countries over the course that climate change could take should there be no further action on all the phenomenon’s four main challenges: mitigation, adaptation, finance and implementation. And it will indeed be a worthwhile effort for the COP27 summit to effectively address those challenges at a time when a considerable number of countries are still in the process of struggling to recover from the effects of the global outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic which have impacted economic activities, in addition to the emerging uncertainties in the word market.
Under such circumstances, COP27 summit would serve as platform and an opportunity for countries of the world to collectively strike a delicate balance between aspirations and existing potentials, especially in light of the solid link between climate action requirements and economic resources. Efforts in this direction imply not only the provision of the finance deemed necessary for implementing adaptation policies and programmes but also the promotion of capacity-building and the role of continually updated technology in delivering operable solutions to mitigation and adaptation challenges.
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