Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, president-designate of the conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on climate change (COP27), participated Tuesday in the sixth ministerial meeting on climate action, held in Stockholm, Sweden. The meeting was attended by several ministers and officials from various countries and representatives of various parties involved in international climate action, including the executive vice president of the European Commission on climate change, the Canadian Minister of Environment and climate change, the Chinese climate envoy, as well as the British minister of state, chairman of the conference of the parties, and the Executive Secretary of the (COP26). Ambassador Ahmed Hafez, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the Foreign Minister delivered a speech during the meeting at the session held under the title "setting the course of international climate action in 2022," in which he highlighted the need for urgent action to implement climate pledges and the Paris agreement on climate change. In this regard, Shoukry pointed out that Egypt, together with Denmark and the United Kingdom (UK), organized a ministerial meeting early this month in Copenhagen on the implementation of climate pledges. This meeting succeeded in confirming the political will of the various parties to focus in the coming period on turning climate pledges into reality. Minister Shoukry further explained the need to continue efforts to strengthen international climate action, especially with regard to adaptation to climate change and emissions reduction, as well as examining loss and damage and providing climate finance. In the same context, he pointed to Egypt's efforts during the session of the conference of COP27, which it chairs and hosts in Sharm el-Sheikh next November, to build on the momentum achieved during the last session of the conference in Glasgow and make further progress in all aspects of climate action. The Foreign Minister stressed Egypt's keenness to communicate effectively with various parties concerned with climate action from countries, governments, the private sector, financial institutions, civil society and scientific and academic circles. He affirmed that building trust between the various parties and achieving common understanding would contribute to the success of the next session of the conference of the parties in Sharm el-Sheikh in achieving balanced results that take into account the concerns of the various parties and strengthen the international climate action at various levels. On the other hand, Shoukry met on Tuesday with his Swedish counterpart Ann Linde to discuss ways to continue working on the development of bilateral relations and cooperation between Egypt and Sweden in many fields. Minister Shoukry expressed interest in developing bilateral cooperation between Egypt and Sweden, especially in light of the great development boom witnessed by Egypt. He stressed that this provides great opportunities for Swedish companies to enhance their presence and investments in Egypt to take advantage of these opportunities, especially in the fields of communications and information technology, digital transformation, smart solutions, clean and sustainable energy production, the development of electricity networks, car manufacturing and the development of Education. Shoukry also pointed to the importance of increasing the volume of Swedish tourism to Egypt. He presented the developments taking place in Egypt in various fields at the level of sustainable development and economic and social development, especially in light of the challenges witnessed by the global economy and the negative impact on Egypt as a result. The two ministers agreed on the importance of enhancing bilateral cooperation and continuing consultation and coordination between the two sides. Earlier, Shoukry met with the European Commission's executive vice president on climate change issues and Canada's Minister of Environment and climate change..
