Mahmoud Mohieldin — Egypt’s UN High-Level Champion for Climate Change — said that there are many promising opportunities in the field of climate action in Africa, hailing the progress made by a number of African countries in the field of green hydrogen in particular.
He also stressed the need to align sustainable development goals with climate action — a matter that would contribute to solving current problems related to food security and energy shortage, as well as facing future challenges.
Mohieldin’s remarks came in a panel discussion held by The African Risk Capacity Group (ARC) — a specialised agency of the African Union (AU). The session was held under the title ‘The road to COP27 and beyond.’
The climate champion’s speech focused on four key elements — adaptation, mitigation, loss and damage, and climate finance.
Furthermore, he referred to a leading initiative to mobilise investment in areas related to climate action that was launched by the Egyptian presidency of the UN Conference of Parties on Climate Change (COP27) in cooperation with UN regional commissions and other high-level champions.
The initiative includes holding five major regional roundtables to showcase high priority projects for the five regions besides mobilising the investments required for their implementation.
In this regard, Mohieldin highlighted the most important outcomes of the first regional forum that was held in Addis Ababa earlier this month, as 140 promising projects were reviewed, 19 of which were shortlisted and will be implemented in the upcoming period.
He noted that Africa is the most affected by the consequences of climate change even though its contribution to global emissions does not exceed 3%. He also referred to the high vulnerability of coastal areas, in addition to the issues faced by the energy and agriculture sectors as a result of climate change, adding that further measures must be taken to ensure that all industries and are climate resilient.
