Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High Level Champion for Egypt and UN Special Envoy on Financing 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, said that carbon markets should not be used only for reducing emissions, but should also be used to achieve adaptation to climate change and to deal with the resulting losses and damages.
This came during his participation in a meeting organized by the Egyptian presidency of COP27, Ministry of Environment and HLC for COP27 in the headquarters of the Egyptian Foreign Affairs Ministry to discuss issues related to carbon markets and its development at local, regional and international levels, with the participation of Ambassador Mohamed Nasr, Director of Environment, Climate and Sustainable Development Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Engineer Sherif Abdelrahim, Head of Climate Change Technology and Researches General department at Ministry of Environment, Catiana Garcia-Kilroy, Sustainable Finance Expert at the World Bank, Andrea Abrahams, IETA Managing Director, and Bogolo Kenewendo Climate Champions’ Special Advisor, beside a number of local and international banks and finance entities officials and private sector representatives.
Mohieldin stated that the carbon market in Egypt should be linked to related international and regional updates, as well as mobilizing all local stakeholders with identifying the role of each of them in order to amplify the benefits and reduce the losses.
He stressed the importance of identifying the kind of the market and whether it will be compliance or voluntary, setting the market regulatory framework with benefiting from experts and academics in this regard, looking at the successful experiments of different countries especially the Asian ones to benefit from them and make positive effects in different sectors especially finance and energy, as well as encouraging the participation of private sector with applying ESGs to prevent greenwashing.
Mohieldin highlighted the importance of planning for the market side when launching the carbon market, and considering available opportunities and global competitiveness, with paying attention to developing national standards and then coordinating them with the in force international standards in this regard, setting clear regulatory policies for carbon market that include governance and tracking to secure achieving transparency, and benefiting from digitalization in launching and operating this market through partnerships with related technology companies.
Mohieldin praised the interest of Egypt government in establishing carbon market, and the involvement of the related ministries in dialogue and work side by side with different local players with the aim of identifying roles and getting the efforts combined in order to set policies and then moving towards operating the market, stressing the necessity of putting the mechanism of carbon markets in a more comprehensive framework to contribute to achieving different sustainable development goals.
