EGYPT is optimising all national preparations and international consultations to ensure that the forthcoming world summit conference it will host in Sharm el-Sheikh in November can emerge as a milestone in international climate action. President Sisi’s participation in the work of the high-level session of the Petersburg Climate Dialogue last week reflected this attitude which Egypt pledged to promote when it offered, during the Glasgow climate summit last year to host the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Since then, the world has come to experience some new challenges on top of which have been the global energy and food crises at a time when countries of the world, especially including the developing ones, were struggling to recover from the repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic which impacted, though with varying degrees, economic growth and prospects worldwide. Simultaneously, countries of the world were endeavouring to deal with the adverse effects of global climate change – a complex process which demanded strenuous adaptation programmes which, in turn, required finance, be it in terms of national allocations or in the field of international pledges and commitments.
One more shared challenge that developing countries have had to face is that all such factors accumulated together and concomitantly; hence President Sisi’s emphasis in his PCD speech on the necessity of maintaining the relevant international momentum and affirming the commitment of all governmental and non-governmental parties to turn their promises and pledges to actual implementation on the ground. In this context, the forthcoming world climate summit (COP27) scheduled to convene in Sharm el-Sheikh nearly three months from now would represent a significant opportunity for coming out with a timely, well-coordinated and efficient international response to the noticeably escalating manifestations of climate change under the circumstances of the existence of other global challenges. Noting that Africa lies in the heart of these challenges since it has to deal with such a combination of climate change manifestations as desertification, water scarcity, high sea levels, floods and torrential rains in addition to extreme weather conditions, President Sisi seized of the opportunity of addressing PCD as a station in the lead up to COP27 summit to call for exerting all efforts to support African countries in a way that enables them to benefit from their natural resources and achieve economic development while simultaneously combating climate change manifestations and protecting the environment.
The case of Africa certainly invokes the overall need for joint efforts to promote wide-based and concerted action to build on the accomplishments of preceding climate summits and other relevant conferences, especially including the Paris and Glasgow summits, in moving ahead to a stage of effective and inclusive mechanisms for combating climate change’s negative impact on global economy, particularly on the economies of developing countries. With its timing and spectrum, COP27 summit would constitute a valuable venue for asserting a fairly-distributed response to climate change, particularly regarding the consolidation of adaptation programmes and reducing environmental warming.
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