Egypt’s Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad met on Tuesday with Alok Sharma, the current President of the Climate Change Conference (COP26), to discuss Egypt’s preparations to host the next climate conference (COP27).
The meeting addressed ways to implement financing mechanisms for climate action, and to produce effective, binding and fair results that put the Paris Agreement into effect and take into account the interests of all countries, especially that the most affected regions by climate change are developing and African countries.
Moreover, the meeting dealt with Egypt’s preparations to host the COP27, and the topics to be discussed. Fouad stressed that defining the topics will depend mainly on what the Glasgow conference will end up with.
The two sides also discussed some controversial points in the negotiations, as Egypt presented to the British side its vision to deal with these points, especially with regard to the issues of climate finance, transparency and Article VI concerned with carbon, adaptation, losses and damages.
Furthermore, the Egyptian Minister of Environment met with Ambroise Fayolle, Vice President of the European Investment Bank for Climate and Development, to exchange visions and discuss Egypt’s roadmap for hosting the COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh in 2022.
During the meeting Fouad stressed that the issue of adaptation is a priority for the African continent, so cooperation in the field of industry, especially with Egypt’s good experience in preparing environmental assessment studies and implementing the industrial pollution control program, is one of the important mechanisms for cooperation to maintain a balance between mitigation and adaptation measures.
For his part, Fayolle highlighted the importance of adaptation not only to the African continent but to Europe as well, which requires more work on confronting measures. Therefore, the EIB seeks to increase the volume of its adaptation projects by 2025, with greater inclusion of the dimension of adaptation in mitigation projects.
“We aim to reach 15% of our investment in climate action in adaptation,” he said.
