COP27 in Egypt: “Collective Multilateral Action”
The climate summit being held in Sharm el-Sheikh was opened with a speech by Sameh Soukry, who said that the conclave will be a "turning point"
The COP27 Climate Summit opened its doors on Sunday in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, with an address by Shameh Shoukry, the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was appointed as president of the conclave with the promise that it will be “a turning point in achieving collective multilateral action”.
Addressing delegates from the more than 190 entities participating in the UN-sponsored meeting to address the climate change crisis, Shoukry said the meeting will seek tangible results, as “it is time to move from the negotiation phase to the implementation phase of commitments”.
In his opening speech, the Egyptian diplomat insisted on the same issues that the organisation has been calling for for weeks: that the global climate situation requires “urgent international action” and that the current political and economic crisis “must not divert global efforts to tackle climate change”, as reported by the EFE news agency.
He also pointed out that this meeting will seek to “provide the necessary financing to developing countries” to achieve the energy transition and tackle the problems arising from the environmental crisis.
This was precisely one of the issues considered key in the hours leading up to this climate meeting.
Alok Sharma, the president of the previous COP26 in Glasgow, also spoke, pointing out that the shared long-term destiny of humanity does not lie in fossil fuels, as the planet needs to seriously fight climate change to guarantee a better future.
“The UN Secretary General has been clear. Our shared long-term future does not lie in fossil fuels. And I agree with him wholeheartedly. All the major reports published this year underline that progress has been made,” Sharma said, as reported by Arab News.
Alok Sharma insisted that great progress has been made in meeting climate change targets, but noted that there is much more to be done. “Despite all the progress, I fully recognise the scale of the challenges that still lie ahead. As every report says, we are making some progress, which also clearly indicates that there is much more to do in this critical decade,” he said.
Sharma also pointed out that, despite the implementation of zero emissions targets, the planet Earth is heading towards 1.7 degrees warming by the end of this century, not 1.5 degrees as scheduled.
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi stressed that the climate summit session in Sharm el-Sheikh comes at a very sensitive time.
“The dangers and challenges require swift action by all countries to develop a roadmap to rescue from the effects of climate change.
“Our world is exposed to existential dangers and unprecedented challenges that affect the very survival of our planet and our ability to live on it,” the Egyptian president said via Facebook.
We hope that the climate conference will move from the pledging stage to the implementation stage with concrete actions on the ground,” he added.
