Egypt’s Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad has participated via video conference in a high-level event in preparation for the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15).
The meeting is organized by the Colombian government with the support of the Secretariat of the United Nations, with the participation of the heads of state of Colombia, Panama, Argentina, and Costa Rica, as well as the ministers of the environment from a number of countries.
Additionally, heads of the World Bank and the United Nations Environment Program attended the meeting.
During her speech on behalf of the Egyptian government, Fouad confirmed that Egypt, as president of the COP14, has made unremitting efforts to draw a global framework for the post-2020 biodiversity map, which came in light of the critical conditions of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Moreover, the Minister launched a set of messages to work on during the new session of the COP15 chaired by China, including that working to link biodiversity conservation and facing the effects of climate change is imperative, as the severe climatic phenomena facing the world did not differentiate between developing and developed countries, and their effects affect everyone.
“Therefore, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has launched an initiative to link the track of the three Rio conventions (climate change, biodiversity, desertification) to unify efforts and effectively achieve the objectives of those conventions,” she said.
With regard to the relationship between investment and biodiversity, Fouad stressed that investment is one of the important topics for biodiversity, whether at the economic, technological or scientific level, but the most important thing is to invest in the human factor of young people and the local population of protected areas.
The minister stressed the importance of reaching an ambitious framework for the conservation of biodiversity through the upcoming COP15, stressing that Egypt will spare no effort to help preserve the planet and face the effects of climate change.