Egypt, Maldives Environment Ministers discuss bilateral cooperation, climate finance

Both officials agreed to continue discussions on the best ways to provide and benefit from climate finance

Egypt's Minister of Environment, Yasmine Fouad, met with her counterpart, Amina Shauna, the Minister of Environment, Climate and Technology of the State of the Maldives, on the sidelines of her participation in a workshop to launch informal consultations on the Glasgow Action Program – Sharm El Sheikh and the Global Adaptation Goal.
The event was hosted by the Maldives from 16 to 17 May.
During the meeting, the two parties discussed mechanisms to raise ambition and push the global goal on the path towards the upcoming COP27 climate conference which will be held in November in Sharm El-Sheikh.
Yasmine stressed during the meeting that Egypt sees the need to move in all tracks to achieve the desired progress, especially the negotiations on the global goal of adaptation, which mainly concerns developing and island countries, and their ability to adapt to the effects of climate change, and the need to reach an agreement and a clear definition of this.
This goal is to facilitate obtaining funding and formulating funding pledges launched by countries at the COP26 Glasgow Climate Conference to support adaptation.
She further noted that Egypt holds many meetings with different delegations, and a ministerial meeting was held last week on implementation mechanisms, with the aim of identifying various visions to achieve a strong impetus for the issue of adaptation.
The Egyptian Minister of Environment pointed to the importance of national plans for adaptation, in which countries set their needs, requirements, and implementation visions, and the role of this in facilitating negotiation about adaptation.
Yasmine added that presenting success stories at the upcoming COP27 climate conference will support the demands of developing countries to obtain the necessary financing, accelerate climate action and start urgently implementation.
For her part, the Minister of Environment, Climate and Technology of the Maldives, pointed to the importance of taking the COP27 as an important opportunity to clarify the efforts being made in the field of climate finance and the requirements of countries, as it is an urgent issue for island countries such as the Maldives.
She also stressed the need to accelerate the provision of climate finance for developing and island countries, especially direct financing. Island countries, for example, are forced to direct some of their financial capabilities to confront sudden environmental disasters and reduce losses and damages to citizens, including directing education and health allocations for this.
The two ministers discussed some similar circumstances between the two countries in the field of linking tourism and the environment to preserve biodiversity, which is one of the areas most affected by climate change.
Both officials agreed to continue discussions on the best ways to provide and benefit from climate finance and to accelerate work on the global goal of adaptation.