Egypt’s Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad met with France’s Ambassador to Cairo Stephane Romatet to discuss bilateral cooperation on environment issues.
During the meeting, the two sides touched upon Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s initiative to achieve integration between the three Rio agreements. These are namely the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
According to a Ministry of Environment statement on Tuesday, Fouad said that the joint environmental cooperation between the two sides has been strengthened during negotiations to prepare and approve the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. It has also been positively affected by the launch of the African Renewable Energy Initiative, and the African Initiative for Adaptation to the Effects of Climate Change.
At the national level, many mutual programmes have been implemented to reduce pollution, and a project of financing systems for climate is currently being prepared.
Fouad pointed to the opportunities for cooperation in integrating the private investment sector into the work that is being done on the environment. Egypt is taking steady steps towards keeping pace with the global transformation, taking into account environmental standards in the economy and development.
These steps include the issuing of green bonds, in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance, in addition to cooperation with the Ministry of Planning to integrate environmental standards into the state’s investment and development plans.
The high level Egyptian efforts are also working to improve the management of natural reserves to achieve their sustainability, whilst providing opportunities for the private sector to invest in the waste to energy field.
For his part, Rometet noted that his country will organise a global event, in 2021, on linking the Rio conventions. He stressed that Egypt is a key partner in the meeting, expressing his country’s aspiration for Egypt’s participation in the global initiative that will be launched to protect 30% of the land and sea areas by 2030.
