Ahead of the next U.N climate change summit in November, the United States and Egypt, which will host the summit, has launched a joint workgroup.
According to U.S. envoy John Kerry, the group’s main task is working on the COP27 conference in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Kerry who spoke at a news conference in Cairo along with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukry said that the Middle Eastern country has already taken many steps in the preparation for the summit.
The U.S envoy said that other world tensions, including the ongoing Ukraine crisis, “… does not change the reality of what is happening every day with respect to our climate. That is a national, international threat for all of us.”
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Kerry, who landed in the Egyptian capital on Sunday, is also scheduled to speak at the American University in Cairo on the future of international climate action in the lead up to COP27.
He explained that the U.S. was also working with the Egyptian government on its own transition to have a clean energy future, adding that there are no politics in this.
“There is no ideology in this,” he said. “This is not anything to do with some of the issues (of concern for the U.S. administration)”.
Kerry was referring specifically to conflicts in the Middle East and Egypt’s human rights record, which has drawn criticism from the U.S. and other western governments.
Recall that In June 2021, Kerry announced an increase in U.S. funding to help Egypt convert to solar energy and move away from fossil fuels, a major source of energy in the country of over 100 million people.
And In recent years, the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has been making efforts to convert to renewables, taking advantage of the country’s optimal solar and wind conditions for energy harvesting.
Story was adapted from Africanews.
