As November 2022 approaches, Egypt prepares host the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP27) in the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh from 6 to 18 November. The conference comes with a view to building on previous successes and paving the way for future ambition, and is a golden opportunity for all stakeholders to tackle effectively the global challenge of climate change.
Egypt assumes the incoming Presidency of COP 27 with a clear recognition of the gravity of the global climate challenge and appreciation of the value of multilateral, collective and concerted action as the only means to address this truly global threat.
The UN Secretariat organised a press conference chaired by Ambassador Wael Abulmagd, special representative of the COP27 president designate, to inform journalists of the latest developments on its way to the COP27 to be hosted by Egypt.
Lack of climate justice
Mr Abulmagd noted that during its hosting of the COP27, Egypt focuses on urgent issues of priority , specifically in the African continent, and looks forward to building on the outputs of Glasgow to set a global target for adaptation according to the “from Glasgow to Sharm al-Sheikh” programme.
Egypt’s Environment Minister Yasmine Fuad has repeatedly stressed the need and significance of adaptation finance and the equally important issue of accessibility to this finance. She insisted that if there was no accessibility to the adaptation finance, it would be a fake advantage.
While he underlined that climate-financing is the core and centre of the climate change issue, Mr Abulmagd stressed that what is on the table at present is not enough and is directed to mitigation rather than adaptation efforts and is based on loans and not grants.
“Developing countries that are the most affected by increasing emissions and the least responsible for causing them are required to take out loans to reduce their effects. This points to lack of climate justice,” he said.
Thematic days
In parallel with the negotiations tracks, the COP27 Egyptian Presidency has designated a number of key thematic days that will place on its agenda a number of panel discussions, roundtables and side events.
According to Mr Abulmagd, “the thematic days come as part of our efforts to enable a broad interaction with various stakeholders where the voice of youth, women, civil society and indigenous people will be at the center of discussions and an enabler to its influence. Among key focus areas will be the promise of innovation and clean technologies as well as the centrality of water and agriculture to the climate crisis. The role of science will also be highlighted in addition to biodiversity loss, energy transition, decarbonisation efforts and finance. Science Day
2022 witnesses several landmark science reports from IPCC, UNEP, and other institutions. Ocean science as well as outcomes from Oceans conferences including the 3rd UN Oceans conference are gaining relevance and linkages to the global climate agenda are evident. The science related to the UNCCD and UNCBD, together with Stockholm+50 are also clearly relevant and interlinked with the climate action agenda.
The Science day would comprise panel discussions and events to bring forward the outcomes of the reports and their recommendations and further enhance engagement of the climate community, practitioners and different stakeholders to discuss and engage on the linkages and findings related to climate change, it would provide an opportunity to engage with the science community and academia and bring their views into the conversation so as to ensure that all work and action is based on solid, credible science, and further discuss roles of academia in support for global action to tackle climate change.
Youth and Future Generations Day
Ensuring that the voice of Youth and Future Generations is heard loud and clear is one of the objectives of the CoP27 Presidency. Having heard the priorities and concerns of Youth representatives over the past few months, it has been decided to hold a stand-alone day to engage young people and ensure that their perspectives are taken on board and reflected across all areas of the climate agenda. The day will provide an opportunity to showcase youth success stories and challenges and will allow for interaction with policy makes and practitioners as well as a dialogue with the high-level champions and non-party stakeholders.
Adaptation and Agriculture Day
Adaptation and Resilience are of crucial importance to all parties and in particular developing countries. IPCC reports including the latest working group II report highlighted the devastating impacts endured by many countries across the world, and pointed to the fact that we are not on track to deal with current climate impacts nor are we prepared for the extreme weather events that are increasing in number and intensity.
Gender Day
The role of women in dealing with all aspects of the climate change challenge is central, crucial and indispensable. Women continue to bear a disproportionate burden from the adverse impacts of climate change, and despite some progress having been made over recent years, the gender perspective needs further work to be fully integrated into the processes of formulating and implementing policies and actions on the ground. The Gender Day aims to bring this issue to the forefront and to provide a platform to discuss existing challenges and to share success stories from around the world with a view to increasing awareness and sharing experiences and promoting gender sensitive and responsive policies, strategies and actions. The day will shed light on the woman’s role in adapting to climate change.
Water Day
Water is the source of life and livelihoods. Climate impacts on water and the linkages to wider, cross cutting impacts on development and livelihoods are well documented and substantiated by credible scientific reports and analyses including most recently by the IPCC and numerous other institutions.
Discussions at the Water Day will cover all issues related to sustainable water resource management. the water day will comprise the different topics of water scarcity, drought, cross boundary cooperation and improvement of early warning systems.
Energy Day
The Energy Day would deal with all aspects of energy and climate change, including renewable energy and energy transformation, with a specific focus on just transition in the energy sector, and Green hydrogen as a potential energy source for the future. It would also include energy efficiency and ways to manage the envisaged global just transition in energy.
Renewable energy, smart grids, energy efficiency and energy storage are all elements of a much needed comprehensive vision of how energy ecosystems could evolve to in the near future, they are also components of a transformative energy future, challenges and opportunities for just energy transition would be part of the discussions in this thematic day.
Biodiversity Day
The day would deal with nature and ecosystem-based solutions. It would also allow the discussion about the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and the means to mobilize the global actions towards the challenges to halt biodiversity loss and to reduce the impacts of climate change and pollution. The discussions would also include the impacts of climate change on oceans, endangered species, coral reefs, sustainability of protected areas to deliver ecosystem services to human, impacts of plastic waste on the aquatic ecosystems and species, ecosystem-based solutions and their link to climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Solutions Day
Possible solutions for the broad array of climate change challenges range from the holistic, cross cutting solutions such as greening of national budgets, or sustainable cities, multilevel action and sustainable transport, to sectoral solutions like waste management, alternatives to plastic and green building. More specific solutions emanating from private sector and start-ups bringing creativity and innovation to the effort to deal with climate change.
Sustainable cities, green buildings and resilient infrastructures are all part of the paradigm shift envisaged in the critical decade and beyond, with an aim to achieve a transformative implementation building on agreed deliverables under different agreements and a further ambitious pledge to reduce climate impacts and consider the role of cities in combating climate change.
Solutions Day will bring together government representatives and businesses and innovators to share their experiences and their ideas with the aim of spreading awareness, sharing experiences and best practices and perhaps building future alliances and collaborations.
Watani International
2 October 2022