First episode of Narrative Summit’s new season features Egypt’s COP27 Climate Champion

  • Dr.Mohieldin: COP-27 climate summit’s success requires a comprehensive approach that addresses climate changes

  • Lamia Kamel: Narrative Summit sheds light on COP27 summit’s purpose, and mobilize Egyptians to promote the conference and its importance

Coinciding with Egypt’s ongoing preparations to host the COP27 climate conference, Narrative summit launched its new season entitled “Leap to COP27”, bringing important and remarkable experts in special interviews over the next weeks.

The first episode named ‘’What does COP27 mean?’’ featured the veteran Economist Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, Egypt’s COP27 Climate Champion, UN Special Envoy on Financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund. He said that Egypt is capable of hosting COP27 conference set to be held in November in Sharm El Shiekh, noting that the Egyptian state will organize the conference at an unprecedented level given the ongoing preparations that has been closely monitored by the political leadership and the government.

Dr. Mohieldin clarified that the 2022 COP27 conference is different from the one held in Glasgow last year in the United Kingdom. Egypt is a country with a strong regional influence on the Arab and African countries. This will contribute to spreading sustainable development and protecting the Arab African people from the repercussions of climate changes that hinders their development plans. The summit will be held within the UN’s framework through which 193 member countries will be participating, as well as some non-member countries due to the momentousness of the event.

He highlighted that what distinguishes Egypt as a host to conference is adopting a comprehensive approach to deal with the climate change; adding that we cannot ignore its impact on poverty and employment, or how its financing or investments heavily burdens the developing countries. Therefore, following a comprehensive approach is key to deal with the climate change within the framework of the sustainable development and the 2030 Vision.

Founder of Narrative Summit, Lamia Kamel said that Narrative Summit has pledged to be an active partner to the Egyptian state to achieve sustainable development goals through coordinating various partnerships in and outside of Egypt. Also, to become a dynamic platform that discusses various topics from different perspectives.

”Coinciding with Egypt’s ongoing preparations to host the COP27 climate conference and the high importance of this event, Narrative summit launched its new season entitled “Leap to COP27″. This season’s episodes will highlight climate change main strategies, and present different perspectives in various fields. We aim to mobilize community efforts and spread awareness about the importance of this event, which comes as one of the biggest achievements of the Egyptian state,” she added.

”I’m honoured to be representing Egypt as one of the world’s climate pioneers- and I am number seven in the ranking, and our role involves mobilizing various efforts from financial institutions, universities, NGOs, and civil society institutions to support the COP27 goals. We focus on several initiatives to reshape the responses to climate change issues. I expect this year’s conference to implement the proposed projects successfully,’’ he noted.

Dr.Mohieldin stressed that H.E President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi called on all international parties to take actual and executive steps to translate the Paris Agreement “COP 21” and Copenhagen pledges into reality; confirming its major necessity. This is evident in Egypt’s giant renewable and alternative energies giant projects such as the Benban complex in Aswan; as well as allocating huge investments to water management and shores protection projects in order to mitigate the impact of the climate change.

According to Dr Mohieldin, the world is not on the right track to achieve Paris Summit’s goals, and harmful emissions are on the rise. ‘’If we were on the right path to carbon neutrality 2050, emissions would have been minimized by 45% by 2030. The current scenario suggests the opposite, they are not decreasing, but rather increasing by 15%. There is a 60% deviation from the target,’’ he concluded.

‘’We started Narrative Summit in 2016, and we managed to hold five events led by Egyptian and International leaders. They presented different and innovative ideas on how to create a national brand that lives up to the status of Egypt as a country. Over the past two years, we also presented a successful series of episodes through social media platforms to creatively deliver our message to the audience,’’ Lamia concluded.

Narrative Summit is a platform that aims to portray the positive aspects of the Egyptian state. Over the past two years and during the spread of the COVID- 19 pandemic, Narrative Summit presented a successful series of episodes through social media channels and reached 18 million users, 7 million interactions and 6 million views; during which it hosted a group of officials and experts to discuss Egypt’s most important achievements and development projects with a futuristic vision of the most common domestic and global subjects.