Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chairperson of the Climate Conference COP27, Sameh Shoukry, chaired on Saturday a virtual meeting of the Bureau of the Conference.
It came on the sidelines of the ongoing meetings in Bonn of the subsidiary bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on providing scientific and technological advice and implementing climate pledges.
Ahmed Abu Zeid, the official spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the meeting was attended by members of the bureau representing the different geographical groups representing the Framework Convention, Simon Steel, the executive secretary of the Convention, and representatives of the team of the UAE presidency of the next session of the Conference (COP28).
During the meeting, Minister Shoukry praised the important role of the Bureau, in conjunction with the Executive Secretariat, in addressing priority issues of climate action, successfully preparing climate conferences and ensuring their outcomes that promote climate action at various levels.
He pointed out that the meetings of the two subsidiary bodies represent an opportunity to assess the course of implementation of the outcomes of the Sharm El-Sheikh conference and build on the successes achieved during it.
The spokesman added that Shoukry discussed the ongoing work to implement the outcomes of COP27, which was hosted by Egypt last November, especially with regard to the activation of the Fund to Finance Efforts to Address Losses and Damage Caused by Climate Change and to Achieve the Global Climate Change Adaptation Goal.
In this regard, he pointed out that two meetings of the transitional committee on climate change losses and damages have been held, in addition to holding the first dialogue and Investment Forum on the climate change mitigation action program, as well as organizing the first workshop on the fair energy transition action program.
The meeting of the Bureau dealt with a number of priority issues in the field of international climate action, foremost among them the status and course of the current climate negotiations during the work of the subsidiary bodies, where the Minister of Foreign Affairs stressed the importance that the Egyptian presidency attaches to the Conference in addressing the concerns of the various parties.
They also reviewed the ongoing preparations at the substantive, organizational and logistical levels for COP28, scheduled to be held in the UAE at the end of this year. Shoukry affirmed the Egyptian presidency’s commitment to the success of the next conference and its expected outcome.
