Assem Hanafi, the Egyptian ambassador to China, says the high level of cooperation between China and the Egyptian presidency of COP27 has continued to grow stronger, with far-reaching results that will have a lasting positive impact on both peoples and the rest of the developing countries.
Chinese backing of numerous initiatives in line with the agenda, according to Ambassador Hanafi, has played a crucial role in the fight against climate change.
At COP27, China’s special envoy for climate change and representative to President Xi Jinping, Xie Zhenhua, promised that China would steadily improve its capacity to manage methane emissions.
“China is willing to strengthen communications and exchanges with other countries for cooperation in policymaking, innovation, and technology application of methane emission control, and make joint contributions to tackling global climate change,” Xie said.
“There is a mutual vision between our two countries when it comes to the necessity of continuing the global effort to mitigate climate change impacts and compensate the least developed countries for losses and damage, commending the level of cooperation on these issues at the bilateral and multilateral levels,” Hanafi told the Global Times.
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“China and the group of the 77 play a vital role in putting forward the interests of the developing countries regarding climate change negotiations,” he added.
In an effort to put global climate financing commitments into action, the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) began on November 6 and will last until Saturday in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
During the two-week conference, where more than 120 world leaders will look for potential solutions to climate change challenges, Egyptian Foreign Minister and COP27 President Sameh Shoukry emphasized during the opening ceremony the need to confront the harmful effects of climate change.
“Egypt believes that the climate crisis will aggravate social, economic and environmental threats. Hence, urgent and serious actions are needed to address the climate crisis and to strengthen the implementation of response with an aim to create a resilient planet,” said Hanafi.
According to him, Egypt’s priority at COP27 is to “move from talks, negotiations and planning to actual implementation; it is the time for action on the ground and we need to move quickly towards full, timely, inclusive, and at-scale action on the ground.”
In addition to climate change, the world over the past year has also suffered from the lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and other crises including increasing inflation and frequent extreme weather events among others.
“There is a necessity to harmonize global efforts, and turn our pledges and commitments to action, this is our highest priority. We shall all agree that in order to help developing countries address climate change, it is essential that we make significant progress on the crucial issue of climate finance while moving forward on all finance-related items on the agenda,” said the diplomat.
“The importance of adequacy and predictability of climate finance is key to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement, to this end, there is a need for enhanced transparency of financial flows and facilitated access to meet the needs of developing countries especially Africa and least developed countries (LDCs).”
The ambassador called on developed nations to “take urgent measures to help climate-vulnerable developing countries better cope with the impacts of climate change, such measures include financing targeted infrastructure projects and mechanisms to share risk through financial markets.”
Economies of developing countries are now facing accelerating climate threats such as hurricanes in the Caribbean and Latin America and floods in Asia and Africa. The extreme weather has not only caused the loss of property and precious human lives but also heavy economic pressure on developing countries as media reports have shown.
Story was adapted from Global Times.
