Due to the prohibition to demonstrate in Egypt, environmental associations had to be satisfied with a closed-door step, at Charm el-Cheikh.
by Laure Stephan (Charm El-Cheikh, Special Envoy)
At the end of the first week of the United Nations Grand Messe on the Climate, this year welcomed by Egypt, frustration is palpable among climate activists present at Charm el-Cheikh as observers at this COP27. “The negotiations advance slowly, regrets Myrto Tilianaki, responsible for advocacy climate at the CCFD-Terre Solidaire, in France. In parallel, announcements are made on the sidelines of the COP, like that of [the American emissary on the climate] John Kerry on a carbon credits market, without having enough elements to assess them. “
“We have to wait for the next week to judge results. But the relentlessness on technical points in discussions is dilating practices,” said Khaireddine Debaya, one of the initiators of the Stop Pollution movement, in Tunisia, who Consider that the countries of the South are in a position of weakness in the face-to-face. “It is indeed an African copy. But there is still no breakthrough on” losses and damage “”, points Tinashe Gumbo, Zimbabwean activist.
All three participated, Saturday, November 12, in what was taking place of traditional civil society march, marking the half-time of COPs. But unlike the habit, the appointment took place behind closed doors, within the official conference of the conference, considered as a UN territory. And therefore, at a distance from the inhabitants of Charm El -Cheikh – and tourist complexes on the Red Sea. Street demonstrations are prohibited in Egypt. The latest notorious rallies, in 2019, were followed by a massive wave of arrests.
The mobilization on Saturday brought together only a few hundred international environmental activists, far from the vast mobilizations of Glasgow last year. The prohibitive cost of hotels and the difficulty in obtaining accreditation was an obstacle to the arrival of activists in the seaside resort, say participants. “It is regrettable that we are not in the street: the COP should not be a bubble,” warns Myrto Tilianaki, from the CCFD-Terre Solidaire.
In the aisles surrounding the official pavilions, general slogans have been launched: “What do we want? Climate justice!” Others implicitly aimed – a country or a manager cannot be taken to the name in the ‘COP pregnant, according to the UN code of conduct – Egyptian power: “Free them all”, in reference to political prisoners. Sanaa Seif, Alaa Abdel Fattah’s sister was at the top of the procession. The family of this figure of the 2011 revolution redoubled a mobilization, against the backdrop of COP, to obtain its release, while Alaa harvested its hunger strike, ceasing to drink.
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