Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for Egypt, said that Africa recently proved that it can play a big role in addressing the climate crisis by providing applicable scientific solutions.
His remarks came during his participation in a session entitled “Road to COP27 and Beyond”, within the activities of the “Voice of Africa” conference organized by the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies (ECES) and CIB, in attendance and participation of Dr. Yasmine Fouad, Minister of Environment.
He added that Africa is working on deploying adaptation technologies across the continent, such as solar agriculture, beside pursuing the win-win opportunity of rapidly deploying the global carbon market, especially with programs that straddle both climate mitigation and adaptation which leads to resilience.
Mohieldin called, in this context, for the equal financing of climate change adaptation and mitigation measures, with the participation of the private sector in this process.
At this point, Mohieldin stressed the importance of the accurate identification of the role of the private sector in the transition to a green economy and financing of climate projects, and setting specific criteria for private sector climate activities to avoid what is called “Green Washing”, he referred in the same time to the government’s role in setting legislative frames and plans of action that allow wider participation of the private sector and other NSAs in financing and implementing climate projects.
The climate champion stressed the necessity of incorporating climate considerations in designing and constructing Africa’s infrastructure.
Mohieldin explained that the role of climate champions to help Africa in fulfilling its climate commitments depends on the three main pillars of the Paris agreement, which are mitigation and reducing GHGs at a minimum halving emissions by 2030 through the UN Race to Zero campaign, adaptation to climate impacts and building resilience in people and nature to climate impacts through the Race to Resilience campaign, and mobilization of finance for climate projects, beside negotiating damages and losses related to the climate crisis and investing in its solutions.
Mohieldin talked about the energy sector in Africa saying that 22 African countries already use renewables as a main source of power, he pointed out that a $10.5 billion investment committed to renewable energy this year in Africa, with a major focus on DRC, Nigeria, Ethiopia, South Africa this year and plans for 2023 in Uganda, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Malawi. He mentioned also Egypt’s leadership role in the Africa Green Hydrogen Alliance with 5 other countries (Mauritania, Morocco, Namibia, Kenya, South Africa) to collaborate pre-competitively on Green Hydrogen deployment.
Mohieldin praised the existence of the biggest four solar energy projects in the world on the African soil, including the Benban solar energy plant in Aswan, Egypt, stressing that Africa has the ability to become a main source of producing and exporting green energy worldwide.
Regarding infrastructure, Mohieldin said that Africa is in urgent need to meet rapid delivery of resilient, quality housing and buildings, adding that reducing emissions through green buildings comes with a $24.7 trillion investment opportunity over the next decade across emerging markets.
He explained that HLC is supporting the creation of a blended finance long-term investment fund to support the investment in Zero Emissions Vehicles (ZEV) in Africa, saying that meeting the Paris agreement targets requires that all vehicles added to the global fleet must be zero emissions by 2035.
“HLC Africa team convening a sustainable agriculture advisory group in Africa to advise African SMEs on the policy, investment and knowledge levers which would help them pivot to more sustainable, food secure and nutritious agriculture,” Mohieldin said.
The climate champion emphasized that climate action requires hand-in-hand work from all countries with no exceptions, saying that the climate inaction of one or two of the influential countries could lead to the obstruction of the whole international community’s efforts, and cutting roads toward the actual implementation of climate solutions.
