SAA Succeeded in its First Year of Operation in Catalyzing Efforts for Adaptation & Resilience
I Insisted to Prioritize Providing Just Climate Finance to Developing Countries
Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High Level Champion for Egypt and UN Special Envoy on Financing 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, said that he was keenly focused on a number of principles of global climate action, including that climate action is an essential part of development action, and that achieving economic growth and climate goals can either be achieved together or neither, beside making mitigation and adaptation efforts balanced with mobilizing adequate finance for just transition to green economy in developing countries.
Mohieldin stated, at the “Global Climate Action High Level Event: Uniting on the Pathway to 2030 and Beyond” within the activities of COP28 in Dubai, with the participation of Razan Al Mubarak, climate champion for COP28, and representatives of the Egyptian and Emirati presidencies to COP27 and COP28, that Egypt stressed the need to achieve a balance between the implementation of climate action, support for developing countries and achieving equity.
Mohieldin highlighted the success achieved by Regional Platforms for Climate Projects (RPCP) initiative through the joint work of Egyptian and Emirati presidency of COP27 and COP28, the UN regional commissions and the HLCs, in strengthening the regional aspect of climate action, adding that the initiative revealed in two years about 450 investable projects with an aggregate funding requirement in excess of about half a trillion dollars, of which 19 projects have already reached agreements with various financiers worth $1.9 billion.
He added that within the context of the regional effort, the HLCs contributed to the launch and support of a number of climate action initiatives in Africa, including the Africa Carbon Markets Initiative (ACMI), the Africa Green Hydrogen Alliance, and the Climate Risk Insurance Facility for Adaptation in Africa.
Mohieldin explained that he focused as a climate champion on the importance of local climate efforts through the National Initiative for Smart Green Projects (NISGP) in Egypt as a practical model for the localization of climate and development action, which in two years resulted in 12,000 projects in all governorates, and created more than 40 partnerships to support the implementation of these projects.
The climate champion noted the role played by the Egyptian presidency of COP27 in collaboration with HLCs in placing adaptation at the heart of climate action along with mitigation, noting the launch of the Sharm El Sheikh Adaptation Agenda (SAA) as a practical mechanism to implement climate resilience goals by 2030.
With regard to climate finance, Mohieldin said that he prioritized making financial flows available quickly and widely to finance climate action in developing countries, and underlined the need to adopt new policies for concessional financing, mobilizing more investments for climate action, activating innovative finance mechanisms, doubling funding for adaptation activities, linking financial capital and nature capital, and mobilizing adequate finance for the Loss and Damage Fund, with the need to review the unfulfilled financing pledges, and developing policies that incentivize mobilizing financing from its domestic resources.
In the same context, Mohieldin referred to the success of the second replenishment of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) which he facilitated, after 31 countries announced contributions to the fund amounting to unprecedented $12.8 billion.
Mohieldin concluded his speech by saying that the more the world’s efforts are united to accelerate the implementation of climate action, the more it will be able to achieve stability, security and equality for all, calling for intensifying efforts to achieve common climate goals.
