Ashraf Abo Arafe
The British Ambassador to Egypt Sir Geoffrey Adams welcomed Her Excellency Minister of Environment Dr Yasmine Fouad and a group of leading business executives in Egypt for a roundtable discussion on ways to grow cooperation between governments and businesses to tackle climate change.
This event marks the UK’s partnership with Egypt on “Climate Resilience and Adaptation” at the UN Climate Summit in New York last September. At the Summit the two countries presented a strategic framework to enhance resilience and adaptation to climate changes.
The roundtable saw participation of leading British and Egyptian companies, including: Actis – Lekela, Procter and Gamble, L’Oreal, Wood, NRL Limited, Enviro-Tech, Green Economy Financing Facility (GEFF), Nestle, and Unilever. The companies presented their environmental strategies, and the measures they are taking to tackle climate change. These measures included implementing new energy systems, measuring energy efficiency in their own companies, and assisting others to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
The international companies also presented recommendations on ways to strengthen their partnership with the Egyptian public sector, including increasing their contribution to climate change adaptation activities in vulnerable areas in Egypt.
In 2020, the UK will host the 26th Conference of the Parties, known as COP26, in partnership with Italy. The conference will bring together over 30,000 delegates from around the world, including climate experts, business leaders and citizens to agree ambitious action to tackle climate change.
Sir Geoffrey Adams, British Ambassador to Cairo said: ‘We are proud of our successful partnership with Egypt at the UN Climate Summit in New York in September, and look forward to deepening that partnership as we prepare to host COP26 in Glasgow next year. We have so many leading companies with us today, which shows that we all understand the need for governments, the private sector, civil society, and international organisations to work together to adapt to climate change, and to protect the most vulnerable members of our societies.’
H.E Dr Yasmine Fouad, Minister of Environment in Egypt, said: “ It is a prerequisite to create an enabling environment to fight climate change by having responsive society where private sector is a key cornerstone. The government has conducted a number of projects and established a high level institutional setup, headed by the Prime Minister, and now moving to the private sector and the banking sector.”
