Egyptian ministers follow up on COP27 preparations, efforts to turn Sharm El-Sheikh into green city

CAIRO – 25 April 2022: The Egyptian ministers of tourism and antiquities, local development, and environment have followed up on preparations to host the 2022 UN Climate Conference (COP27) in November and the efforts to turn Sharm El-Sheikh into a green city.

Minister of Environment Yassmine Fouad, Minister of Tourism Khaled El-Anani and Minister of Local Development Mahmoud Shaarawi discussed the developments of the integrated waste management system in Sharm El-Sheikh to turn it into a green and sustainable city.

The meeting also reviewed a number of infrastructure projects and proposals for the development of this system and the safe disposal of waste for hotel and tourist facilities in the Red Sea resort city.

This comes as part of the ongoing preparations to host COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh.

The ministers reviewed the results of the talks underway with companies willing to work in the solid waste system in South Sinai with the aim of raising the efficiency of collection, transport, treatment and recycling of waste.

The ministers, in this regard, asserted the importance of the role played by the local community and South Sinai residents to render this system successful.

On Sunday, Fouad said Egypt is looking forward to preparing an integrated agenda in various domains during COP27.

Climate change is the major international challenge that the countries face, she said, noting that developing countries seek to get needed finance to be able to carry out adaptation projects.

She made the remarks during her participation in the Annual Conference 2022 of the Boao Forum for Asia.

She highlighted the importance of the forum which comes at a time when the world is recovering from the coronavirus and facing a major economic crunch accompanied by key environmental challenges.

She highlighted the importance of transferring technology to developing communities to help them swiftly achieve carbon neutrality.

She also called for introducing a new type of education like technical education that helps to alleviate the impact of climate change.

Last week, Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat said that successive meetings with development partners and continuous communication between technical teams resulted in many frameworks of partnership and cooperation under Egypt's presidency of COP27.

This comes whether at the level of technical support or development funds as well as events that will be organized as part of the conference and finance day events.