Egypt Taking Advantage of COP27 to Bring Attention to Regional Climate Issues
Cargo ships sail by the Lekela wind station in Ras Ghareb, Egypt on Oct. 12, 2022. Photo: AP/Amr Babil
The 27th annual United Nations meeting on global climate policy, more commonly called COP27 (Conference of the Parties), will commence in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on Nov. 6. The conference, which will last until Nov. 18, will include representatives from more than 200 governments from around the world, a wide variety of environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs), think tanks and international businesses. Egyptian officials have called on world leaders to set aside political tensions and show “leadership” while addressing the looming climate catastrophe.
Egypt and other Middle Eastern and North African governments hope that hosting COP27 will bring global attention to climate change’s disproportionate effect on the region. Data from the World Resources Institute (WRI) indicates that 12 out of 17 of the most “water-stressed” countries in the world are located in the Middle East and North Africa. As many as 90 million inhabitants are expected to suffer some form of “water-stress” by 2025, and protests over water shortages have already occurred in Iran.
Furthermore, projected sea level rise is soon expected to devastate many cities in the “low-lying coastal areas” of Tunisia, Qatar, Libya, UAE, Kuwait, and Egypt. In Alexandria, Egypt for example, a sea level rise of only half a meter could cost the city over $50 billion in water damage annually, according to a World Bank assessment. Climate change in general is a monumental disruption to countries’ development in areas of food security, and Middle Eastern and North African countries will face this challenge most acutely.
A woman and a boy walk on the dried-up Zayandeh Roud River in Isfahan, Iran on July 10, 2018. Photo: AP/Vahid Salemi
With many Middle Eastern and African countries already suffering from political turmoil, civil wars, population growth, and general instability, the increasingly devastating nature of climate change will likely exacerbate much of the already present human suffering in the region.
One heated debate from COP26 that will almost certainly be continued this year will surround the developed world’s role in perpetuating climate change, while the developing world disproportionately faces the consequences. 23 of the world’s richest nations are responsible for an entire half of historical CO2 emissions, while more than 150 other countries are responsible for the remaining 50 percent. The United States alone has emitted nearly a quarter of all carbon emissions.
According to a Stanford University study, climate change exacerbates inequality between wealthy and poor nations. This happens especially in regions like the Middle East and North Africa, where further annual temperature increases in an already scorching region of the globe account for “robust and substantial declines in economic output.”
The choice to hold the conference in Egypt has caused controversy, however, due to concerns about human rights abuses in the country. Over 100 NGOs have signed a petition to “emphasize that effective climate action is not possible without open civic space,” and to “stress the importance of the right to freedom of expression and independent reporting to foster efforts to address the climate crisis.” Other critics have suggested that hosting COP27 is a “PR tool” for the Egyptian government to whitewash its poor human rights record.
Despite these concerns, COP27 will still happen in Egypt and is expected to focus on three key topics: reducing global emissions, adapting to the consequences of climate change, and securing technical and financial support for developing countries to address such plans.