By Doaa Hussein
President El-Sisi arrived in Paris, last Sunday, to attend the United Nations’ climate change conference that started November 30th, and continues to 11 December 2015.
This year El-Sisi represents Egypt and the African nations, as he is the current head of the African Union Climate Change Committee. He expressed, in his speech, African interests and concerns to reach an agreement about climate change that puts in consideration the rights of all sides, according to the presidency statement.
The president participated in a meeting, led by French president Francois Hollande, to discuss the challenges of climate change, and the future reliance on Africa’s energy. Meetings with the French president, prime minister, and international delegates were held in preparations to the conference.
In this year’s summit, Egypt introduced a report explaining its political and economic strategy in coping with the international community, to eliminate greenhouse effect formed by carbon emissions and to battle terrorism. The report focuses on the Egyptian government’s efforts in handling the effects of the climate change in Egypt’s agriculture and water- resources sectors, as well as the coastal cities, in addition to its attempts to limit gas emissions from energy, transport, and industrial sectors.
This year’s report also shed light on the country’s future plan for sustainable development till 2030, which consists of two parts: Egypt’s plan for development in the next 15 years, and its future efforts for creating an investor friendly environment for local and foreign investors. International support is necessary in helping 3rd world countries with the knowhow of facing climate change dangers – assistance through financial aid and advanced technologies were highlighted as well in the report.
The Egyptian ambassador in France, Ehab Badawy, said earlier Sunday that there are small countries facing extinction, and Egypt is particularly endangered by the likely disappearance of its coastal cities because of the expected increase in sea level, which also threatens the global shipping routes.
The 2015 climate change summit, which is briefly named as ” COP21″, was described by CNN as a historical event, as it witnesses the participation of the heads of 147 countries for the first time, including US President Barack Obama, China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi , the top 3 countries with highest carbon emissions levels. The 190 leaders attending the summit work in 2 weeks, enacting global policies to confine the threatening global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius above pre- industrialization era averages.
