Egypt calls for pledge fulfillments at climate conference

Egypt calls for pledge fulfillments at climate conference

CAIRO: Egypt’s foreign minister Wednesday urged world leaders and negotiators to deliver on previously made pledges to battle climate change ahead of this month’s UN summit. Sameh Shoukry, the president of the COP27 climate change conference to be held in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh on Nov. 6-18, said participants should aim to take “meaningful and tangible steps” to implement the 2015 Paris climate accord. The Paris Agreement aims to keep global temperatures from rising another degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) between now and 2100, a key demand of poor countries ravaged by rising sea levels and other effects of climate change. Last year’s summit in Glasgow produced a compromise deal aimed at keeping that key global warming target alive. “We aim to restore the ‘grand bargain’ at the center of the Paris Agreement and our collective multilateral climate process,” Shoukry said in a four-page letter to world leaders and delegates taking part in the COP27. “This year the picture is less encouraging,” he said, warning of backsliding on the delivery of finance pledges to developing countries to increase their efforts to address climate change. Shoukry said the summit comes amid uphill challenges including the failure of the G-20