Egypt's FM heads to Germany to sign COP27 hosting agreement

Nada Nader, Tuesday 7 Jun 2022

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry headed on Tuesday to the German city of Bonn to sign the agreement for Egypt to host the 27th UN session of the Conference of the Parties (COP27), which will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh in November.

Shoukry
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, holds a press conference with his Iraqi counterpart Fouad Hussein, and Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi following their meeting, in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, June 6, 2022. AFP

The agreement is scheduled to be signed on the sidelines of the 56th session of the subsidiary bodies – in which COP27’s President-Designate Shoukry is participating – that is taking place from 6 to 16 June 2022 at the World Convention Center in Bonn, the foreign ministry’s spokesperson Ahmed Hafez said in a statement.

The 56th session of subsidiary bodies aims to lay the groundwork for success at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, according to the UN, as governments in Bonn will focus on work in the key areas of mitigation, adaptation, and supporting developing countries, particularly financially.

The statement noted that Shoukry is expected to meet a number of high-ranking international officials concerned with the climate change issue, in addition to representatives of non-governmental organizations that are certified in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).

Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said last month that Egypt will spare no effort through its presidency of COP27 to relentlessly seek to move from the stage of commitments and pledges to actual implementation of quick and tangible measures.

COP26 took place in Glasgow, where nearly 200 nations came together and discussed the work needed to undertake to reach the 1.5-degree Celsius goal under the Paris Agreement.

Speaking to delegates at the opening of the Bonn sessions, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa said the world is going to have one question in Sharm El-Sheikh: what progress have you made since Glasgow?

“We urgently require political-level interventions and decisions in each of these areas in order to achieve a balanced package. Doing so will send a clear message to the world that we are headed in the right direction,” Espinosa said.

The UN’s top climate change official warned that climate change is progressing exponentially. With the world currently on track to more than double the 1.5 Celsius goal of the Paris Agreement by the end of the century, ambition must urgently be raised to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and immediate action and progress in Bonn are needed.

“We must move these negotiations along more quickly. The world expects it. They know that while nations made a commitment to meeting the Paris Agreement’s goal of reaching 1.5 degrees Celsius, that commitment entailed accelerated action and increased climate ambition. It is not acceptable to say that we are in challenging times — they know that climate change is not an agenda we can afford to push back on our global schedule,” she said.

COP27 in Egypt will primarily focus on implementation, and nations are expected to show how they will, through legislation, policies and programs, and throughout all jurisdictions and sectors, begin putting the Paris Agreement into practice in their home countries, according to the UN.

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