Egypt’s Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad has met with the ministers of finance, planning and economic development, and international cooperation in order to coordinate and define roles and responsibilities within the Prime Minister-chaired committee to organise the Conference of the Parties (COP 27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2022.
On 12 November, the UNFCCC chose Egypt, as a representative of Africa, to host the Conference, which is expected to be held in November 2022 in Sharm El-Sheikh.
Fouad explained that during the meetings, a number of initiatives and implementation mechanisms were discussed, in addition to a package of development projects, based on the national strategy for climate change.
During the discussions, the Minister of Finance suggested organising a day for climate finance, and the Ministry of Planning suggested a network of Egyptian research centres concerned with climate change, especially the Climate Change Center of the National Research Center, in order to partner with foreign research centres that have the appropriate capabilities, as well as preparing political working papers in the fields related to climate change.
The Minister of Environment explained the general framework of the climate conference through the various tracks. She noted that there is a main negotiating track based on the agenda that emerged from the previous meeting.
Moreover, there is a track for the initiatives undertaken by the host country, and there is a third track for side events to support those initiatives and topics of importance to developing countries in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The meetings also dealt with the possibility of implementing a youth program to prepare ambassadors for climate change. The ministers agreed on the importance of forming a working group in each ministry to follow up on the implementation of the roles and responsibilities of the technical, logistical and political subcommittees.
