THE city of Glasgow is these days the centre of global attention as the leaders of nearly 200 countries gathered for a crucial summit conference to consider the way ahead for the much needed action to reduce climate warming which is posing a serious threat to life on our planet. Judging by the extensive media coverage the event has received and huge interactivity it has drawn on social media platforms, the Glasgow conference which kick started yesterday at the level of Heads of State and Government, constitutes a significant opportunity for the world’s biggest and least carbon emitters to get together and unite in tackling climate change through a careful re-appraisal of past steps and an insightful layout for future action.
Emanating from this understanding that Egypt is taking part in the Glasgow summit, with President Sisi focusing during conference debates as well as in talks with world leaders on the sidelines of the summit, on presenting the relevant concerns of developing countries especially including African countries and the need for intensifying international climate action, as Presidency Spokesman Ambassador Bassam Radi noted in a statement the other day. And it is worthwhile to recall in this context that the Egyptian leader chaired the African Union’s ad hoc committee on climate change and addressed, on behalf of Africa, the Paris summit on climate change; hence Egypt’s aspiration to host next year’s summit, COP27.
Coming as it did just one day after a G20 summit in Rome where the world’s largest 19 economies plus the European Union considered ways to enhance financial stability and facilitate global economy’s recovery from the after-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Glasgow summit offers a wide-based platform for the international community to accelerate and intensify climate action even at this time when it is still struggling to forestall any further spread of the pandemic. An insightful reading of the global scene would reveal that countries of the world, especially including the developing ones, share serious concerns over the prospects of achieving global economic recovery under conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic and at a time when climate change continues to demand systematic and effective response.
One serious implication of such a global setting is that both challenges are getting increasingly interlinked, at least for now. Continuing research and development to develop potent therapies to Covid-19 and efforts to expand the reach out of vaccination campaigns require additional and possibly increasing funding. Concomitantly, acceptance and pursuance of more effective anti-climate change programmes demand the sufficient availability of financial resources to facilitate the smooth adoption of new patterns of industrialisation and urban life as well as the absorption of associated technologies. Decades into multi-faceted efforts to limit Earth warming and excessive carbonisation, it has been the world’s cumulative experience that climate action demands much more than the mere availability of financial resources or allocations. It does demand persistent programmes to firmly establish and pursue economic and social adaptation policies in favour of decarbonisation, larger greening and increasing reliance on scientific methodologies. And this is the one area where multilateral action, co-operation and international summit conferences can be highly instrumental.
