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Sharm El-Sheikh (Egypt), Nov 9 (AP) The Latest on COP27, this year's annual UN summit on climate change.
Egypt's government said on Wednesday it signed partnership agreements worth USD 15 billion for climate change-related projects as it hosts the UN climate summit in the seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
The agreements include a USD 10 billion investment in clean energy, and eight other initiatives that cover food security, agriculture and irrigation and water sectors.
In a statement, the government said the projects would help the country transition to renewable energy by replacing existing inefficient thermal power plants.
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It also said the investment would help adaption efforts to protect farmlands and coastal areas through increasing crop yields and irrigation efficiency, building resilience of vulnerable regions in the country.
The projects will be funded by world and regional financial institutions including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the African Development Bank and global banks such as HSBC and CitiBank.
The signing ceremony was attended by Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly and US climate envoy John Kerry.
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The top 14 greenhouse gas emitters are gas and oil fields and their associated facilities, with the US the oil-rich Permian Basin at the summit of the list. What's more, emissions are much higher than reported to the UN, as much as three times more.
That's according to data released Wednesday by the Climate TRACE coalition at the UN conference on climate change, hosted by Egypt in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
The coalition of 100 organisations said it collected its data through multiple open sources including satellite coverage, remote sensing, artificial intelligence.
Announcing the report, former US Vice President Al Gore, who is a founding member Climate TRACE, said the data showed how deep emissions cuts need to be to “prevent the most catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis.”
The report showed that 56.33 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions were produced in 2021, and the Permian Basin was at the top of emitters with with more than 208.6 million tons.
Russia's Urengoyskoye gas field came second in the list with 152 million tons.
The data showed that the top 500 individual sources of greenhouse gas emissions account for 14 per cent of the global emissions for 2021.
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China blamed the United States for disrupting negotiations between the world's two biggest polluters on tackling climate change, but said communications never ceased entirely.
Beijing's climate envoy, Xie Zhenhua, told reporters at the UN climate conference in Egypt that US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan had “invaded China's sovereignty and hurt Chinese people's feelings.”
“That's why China decided to suspend the formal climate talks with US,” he said. “The responsibility lies totally with the US side.”
Xie urged the United States to “clear the barriers” to holding formal talks again. Meanwhile Xie and his US counterpart, John Kerry, had continued informal exchanges before and during the gathering in Sharm el-Sheikh, he said.
“The door is actually closed by them and it is we, China, trying to open it,” he added, according to an official translation.
Asked why President Xi Jinping was not attending the two-week meeting, where US President Joe Biden is expected Friday, Xie cited the Chinese leader's “very busy domestic schedule” and visits by foreign dignitaries following the recent Communist Party congress.
“When you have guests at home you cannot just leave them and fly abroad to this conference,” he said.
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The mother of a leading jailed Egyptian pro-democracy activist who is on a hunger and water strike went to the prison where her son is held for the third day in a row on Wednesday in hope of getting proof that he is still alive amid increasingly growing concerns about his health.
Alaa Abdel-Fattah, also a UK citizen, escalated his months-long hunger strike and stopped drinking water Sunday to coincide with the start of the Egypt-hosted UN climate summit on November 6.
His family has been lobbying for his release for months, taking advantage of the international spotlight on Egypt's human rights record at COP27.
Abdel-Fattah's mother, Laila Soueif, was unsuccessful on her previous two attempts to receive a letter from her son. Officers told her that he refused to write one.
His family fears that prison authorities might resort to force-feeding him to keep him alive.
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Climate activist Vanessa Nakate has warned against new fossil fuel projects on the African continent at the UN climate summit Wednesday, arguing oil and gas are “a dangerous distraction.”
The UNICEF ambassador added that “decades of fossil fuel development has failed to help the 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa without basic electricity access,” adding that any projects in Africa will only serve energy demands in the global north.
Nakate has previously spoken out against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline which would run through her native Uganda.
She feared any new fossil fuel projects would “soon become stranded assets” which would leave “African countries with debts piled upon debt.”
Nakate repeated her calls for rich countries to step up and pay for the damage cause by heat-trapping gases in poorer nations that are more vulnerable to climate change.
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The first phase to a project to establish a major clean hydrogen plant in the Egyptian seaside resort of Ain el-Sokhna was launched by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and the Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre on Wednesday.
The project will have a capacity to produce 100 megawatts of green hydrogen once completed.
President el-Sissi said the project “provides a practical model of investment partnership that stimulates sustainable economic development with a focus on the role of the national and foreign private sector.”
Norwegian renewable energy company Scatec will take the lead in developing the project.
The company already has a footprint in Egypt, having developed one of the world's largest solar parks, the Benban solar park in the Aswan region in upper Egypt.
The Egyptian government said in a statement that they intend to work towards producing 8 per cent of the global hydrogen market in the next few years.
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An aid group linked to Denmark's Lutheran Church says it wants to take responsibility for all of the emissions it has produced worldwide over the past 100 years.
DanChurchAid said Wednesday that from 2023 to 2025 it aims to plant enough trees to absorb the same amount of carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas — as its activities have produced since 1922.
The group acknowledge that there is no agreed method for how to count historic emissions, but that “a rough estimate is better than no estimate” and if in doubt it erred on the high side.
DanChurchAid said that while it can't undo the damage its emissions have caused, it hopes the measures “will provide inspiration and contribute to the debate about how to address the climate crisis.”
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BERLIN — Climate activists climbed on top of Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate to protest global warming on Wednesday.
The activists from Last Generation unrolled a large poster Wednesday morning saying, “We wish for survival ... We are the last generation.”
Members of Last Generation and other climate groups have been protesting across Germany for months, disrupting traffic by gluing themselves to city streets during rush hour or sticking their hands by famous paintings in museums trying to call people's attention to their cause.
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A few dozen climate activists held a small protest on Wednesday calling on nations to accelerate the transition to clean energy.
Wednesday's protest was a rare show of activism in at the UN conference, known as COP27, taking place in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
The protesters called for an end to new oil and gas exploration and money for renewable energy.
The protest comes on COP27's themed day for finance and was organized by the Netherlands-based Recourse organization that campaigns for investments to be redirected away from fossil fuels and toward renewables.
The protesters sang, chanted and held signs with slogans that read: “Get Finance out of Fossil Fuels,” and “No Gas.”
Several thorny issues have been discussed at the talks, including further cutting greenhouse gas emissions and boosting financial aid for poor countries struggling with the impacts of climate change.
The issue of reparations for climate harms, known as loss and damage, has been put on the negotiation agenda for the first time, with many leaders calling for the implementation of previous financial pledges.
Another group of activists held a protest also demanding a “swift, just and equitable phase-out of fossil fuel.” (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)