Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for Egypt and UN Special Envoy on Financing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, said that each project submitted to the National Initiative for Smart Green Projects shows ordinary citizens how much he/she can benefit from development and climate action.
Mohieldin's remarks came during his participation in a session on winning projects of the National Initiative for Smart Green Projects, within the activities of COP27, with the participation of Dr. Hala Al-Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, Hesham Badr, the initiative's General Coordinator, Elena Panova, UN Resident Coordinator in Egypt, and Hany Farhat, Director of Market Research Sector at Banque Misr.
"The initiative contains six categories of promising projects that cover various dimensions of climate action in different sectors and fields such as waste management, energy resources, projects to adapt to climate change, and others to reduce harmful emissions", Mohieldin said, explaining that each project represents one of the required solutions to the climate crisis.
Mohieldin noted that the initiative represents cooperation and integration between various ministries, the private sector, governorates, and different categories of society, and it also represents a race to localize development and investments in Egyptian governorates.
He praised the decision to hold the competition annually, which provides an opportunity for a larger number of projects to be submitted, stressing the importance of this initiative to raise Egyptian society's awareness about climate issues.
"Egypt will cooperate with United Nations to transfer the experience at regional and international levels. Coordination is underway for winning projects to be presented at COP28 which will take place in the United Arab Emirates next year", he said.
Additionally, Mohieldin said, during the "Actionable Adaption plans" session, that race to resilience is gaining momentum, but it is still far from the required level.
"Adaptation measures represent the second line of defense in facing climate change after mitigation ones, so they need more participation and finance," he said, adding that private sector participation in financing adaptation projects does not exceed 3% of its total contribution to climate finance.
He referred to the five regional round tables initiative's results that include reliable, investable, and bankable projects that include adaptation ones, highlighting also the "Sharm El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda" which aims to achieve resilience for about 4 billion people.
Concerning financing adaptation measures, Mohieldin pointed to the importance of international financing entities adopting soft grants and loan criteria that allow long-term repayment periods with low-interest rates, besides the importance of developed countries to fulfill their pledges to finance climate action in developing countries.
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