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#GlobalWarming & #ClimateChange News Desk – #COP27 might be in Egypt — but there’s a list of environmental topics that could see you thrown in jailCOP27 on the shores of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula has been billed as the “African COP” — with its agenda to focus on climate adaptation and infrastructure for developing nations, including many on the African continent.
But inflated accommodation costs, human rights abuses, and questions over Egypt’s own climate credentials have cast a shadow over the event before it gets underway this evening (AEDT).
Attending the event as a delegate for Griffith University, Virginia Young had accommodation in the coastal city of Sharm el-Sheik booked and paid for in advance.
But around four months ago, she was contacted by the hotel to say her bill had gone up — from $2,500 to $10,500 — and that she’d need to pay or have her reservation cancelled.
With few options, she managed to scrape together the funds. But she wasn’t the only one.
Kathryn Bowen, deputy director of the University of Melbourne’s Climate Futures, was contacted a few months ago to say she’d have to stump up an extra $US440 a night for the two-week conference or her booking would be scrapped. She refused and was temporarily left without a place to stay.
According to Professor Bowen, there’s been no clarity over who has issued the directive, with hoteliers, government and event officials all pointing the finger at each other.
Mark Howden, IPCC author and director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University (ANU), said getting to this COP had been a prohibitively expensive business.
“Stories about price gouging are rife and the scale of this is quite extraordinary,” Professor Howden said.
Price gouging is a common feature at COPs, and was also an issue at last year’s event in Glasgow.
While some may be able to wear the inflated costs, price gouging is expected to exclude many NGOs and interest groups from the very developing nations this COP is supposed to be platforming.
Pushback likely on key issues
Last month, the African Climate Justice Collective — a grassroots African movement representing “civil society organisations, movements of women, peasant communities, African citizens and more” — sent a declaration to African governments and COP negotiators.
They called for the rejection of any attempts to “brand COP27 as an African COP if it does not recognise the voices of African people in their diversity, and push for agreements that draw closer to making climate justice expectations a reality.”Numerous African grassroots groups are calling for a better deal for developing nations.(Getty Images: Guy Peterson)none
Among their list of outcomes they want to see from the conference is progress on loss and damage — payment from developed countries to developing countries for climate impacts.
Melbourne Climate Futures director Jacqueline Peel says “loss and compensation” is an important factor in climate justice.
“In climate [change] those countries that have contributed least to the problem are suffering the most.”
But there’s likely to be a lot of pushback from developed countries, who will find it a difficult sell domestically, according to Frank Jotzo, director of the Centre for Climate and Energy Policy at ANU.
“Providing money under any kind of planned scheme that will essentially look like it’s compensation for wrongs done, that is always the hardest transfer to make politically,” Professor Jotzo said.
“Loss and damage is a very tough thing for the US administration [and] it’s a tough sell for many other countries as well.”
Traditionally, NGOs and protest groups have helped to raise the profile of difficult or unpalatable issues at COP meetings, and their absence could detract from this year’s event, according to Professor Howden.
“Many people from Africa and other developing countries similarly haven’t been able to afford to get there,” he said.
Environmental activists ‘silenced’
But for protesters who may be able to afford to get to Sharm el-Sheikh, that could be just the first hurdle.
A spokesperson from one African climate group said they couldn’t respond to questions from the ABC due to safety fears.
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Brendan Mackey is an IPCC-contributing author from Griffith University.
The university is an observer organisation, but Professor Mackey will be attending remotely rather than in person.
He says if previous COPs are anything to go by, it’s likely activists could run into trouble.
“The thing to look at is how the authorities react to public protests. [Protest] is a very common feature of the COPs. NGOs organise public events to protest issues — they have rallies.
“I was at the COP[15] in Copenhagen and the Copenhagen law enforcement was very harsh — I witnessed peaceful protesters being whacked by police.”
Serious concerns have already been raised about the host nation’s treatment of environmental activists.
Human Rights Watch says debate around environmental issues in Egypt is far from free, and the country is using COP27 to greenwash its reputation.
Amr Magdi, a senior Egypt researcher with Human Rights Watch, says environmental activists in Egypt have been silenced as part of a broader crackdown on civil rights over the past decade.
The current government, which rose to power in 2013 in a military coup, has arrested tens of thousands of activists.
“Many organisations had to shut down because of this, particularly environmental groups,” he said.
“Any researcher or journalist knows going to the street and talking to affected communities and talking about environmental issues is extremely risky — not just for them, but for the residents.”Human rights groups say Egypt has a track record of persecuting activists.(Getty Images: LightRocket)none
Even the location of the conference, in Sharm el-Sheikh, rings alarm bells for Mr Magdi.
“Normally you would host that in Cairo or Alexandria, not in Sharm el-Sheikh, which is isolated and has so many army and police checkpoints on the road from Cairo.
“It was already a sign about what the government intends to do with this COP.”
Mr Magdi, who is Egyptian, can speak freely from his home in Berlin.
He says there are a handful of environmental topics that are safe to work on in Egypt because they don’t antagonise the government.
“These areas could be rubbish collection, beach collection, clean energy — stuff that does not annoy the government and does not impact the policy making.”
But according to Human Rights Watch, there’s a long list of environmental topics in Egypt that are off limits for anyone looking to stay out of jail.
These include overdevelopment, and environmental damage caused by large corporations or the military.
“If you want to work on the impact of tourism on the environment, the growing fossil fuels industry in Egypt and the use of coal, if you want to talk about the environmental impact of the vast and opaque businesses owned by the government and military, you can’t do that — you risk jail,” Mr Magdi said.
Egypt’s own climate credentials shaky
Climate Action Tracker rates Egypt’s climate ambition as “highly insufficient”, commensurate with warming of up to 4C.
Ahead of hosting COP27, Egypt submitted its first update to its emissions pledge — known as a nationally determined contribution, or NDC.
But that pledge will see its emissions continue to grow at their present rate, or even accelerate through 2030, as the country expands its fossil fuel production and use.
The UN Emissions Gap Report released late last month found that global emissions reduction pledges for 2030 have us on track for 2.4-2.6 degrees Celsius of warming this century — far beyond the 2C limit agreed to under the Paris Agreement, and which COPs are meant to be striving for.
The report found emissions need to be cut by 45 per cent more than is currently pledged by 2030, to give us a chance of staying below 1.5C of warming, and at least 30 per cent to stay below 2C.
After a brief dip during the COVID slowdown, global emissions bounced back to an all-time high in 2021.
The UN had called on all countries to submit more ambitious emissions reduction pledges following COP26 in Glasgow last year.
However, in what the UN has described as a “wasted year”, only a handful of countries submitted updated NDCs.
As a country hosts a COP, the presidency of the decision-making body falls to that country for the following 12 months, or until the next conference.
Egypt’s climate change record has some doubting the strength of leadership that the country will bring to the presidency.
For their part, Egyptian representatives say they’re confident that COP27 will include “stronger will and a higher ambition on mitigation, adaptation and climate finance”.
“As the incoming presidency, Egypt will spare no effort to ensure that COP27 becomes the moment when the world moved from negotiation to implementation, and where words were translated to actions,” Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said in a statement.
“Where we collectively embarked on a path towards sustainability, a just transition and eventually a greener future for coming generations.”
Egypt’s foreign minister also told Associated Press earlier this year that protests would be permitted.
“We are developing a facility adjacent to the conference centre that will provide them the full opportunity of participation, of activism, of demonstration, of voicing that opinion,” Sameh Shoukry said.
“And we will also provide them access, as is traditionally done on one day of the negotiations, to the negotiating hold itself.”
But for many others, this COP will likely be about managing expectations.
“I’m hearing really mixed messages around the expectations for this COP,” Professor Bowen said.
“Some people are reflecting that it’ll be a year that won’t reach the same points of decision that last year did.
“And last year wasn’t that momentous either.”
#COP27: King Charles hosts meeting ahead of climate summit
By Georgina Rannard: BBC News Climate & Science
King Charles III has hosted a reception to discuss tackling climate change, as global leaders prepare for the UN climate summit COP27.
About 200 politicians and campaigners met at Buckingham Palace, including PM Rishi Sunak, US climate envoy John Kerry and COP President Alok Sharma.
The King is internationally known for his climate work but it was agreed he would not go to COP27.
The UN conference begins on Sunday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
Mr Sunak told the meeting that the UK’s global leadership on climate change will continue after its COP presidency ends this week. The UK hosted COP26 in Glasgow last year.
“Every moment that we allow climate change to ravage our planet we will see more human suffering,” he said.
“If we do not act today we will risk leaving an ever more desperate inheritance for our children tomorrow.”
Mr Sunak, who will attend the opening days of the summit, had faced fierce criticism from climate activists and opposition politicians for initially saying he would not go due to pressing matters in the UK.
The prime minister paid tribute to King Charles’s work on climate, saying he had worked for 50 years to find solutions, long before the first UN COP meeting.
- The big issues facing Egypt’s COP27 climate summit
- Climate change: What have leaders done in 2022?
- Why the latest UN climate conference matters
When former PM Liz Truss entered No 10, it was announced King Charles would not go to the summit.
The monarch has a long-standing interest in environmental issues and attended COP26 in Glasgow last year, but the Palace said it had sought advice from then-PM Ms Truss and that “with mutual friendship and respect there was agreement that the King would not attend”.
On Thursday a spokesperson for Mr Sunak said, “had the prime minister been in post earlier the situation might have been different”.
Buckingham Palace says the reception on Friday afternoon was organised to “facilitate discussion of sustainable growth, progress made since COP26 in Glasgow and collective and continued efforts to tackle climate change.”
At COP26 in Glasgow last year, the King told leaders: “I can only urge you, as the world’s decision-makers, to find practical ways of overcoming differences so we can all get down to work, together, to rescue this precious planet and save the threatened future of our young people.”
ABC/YouTube/Twitter/BBC
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