The UN climate summit, which takes place in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, from this Sunday to the 18th, could become a key congress for the global South. The event was framed as an African COP and many countries and environmental groups want to put an urgent and sensitive issue at the center of the debate: rich countries’ historical responsibility for climate change and their debt to developing countries, which are often hardest hit. although their contribution was minimal. However, human rights organizations and activists, and more recently a group of UN experts, have been warning for months of the dilemma of holding this event, known as COP27, in a country with a long history of draconian human rights abuses: restrictions on civil society, systematic persecution of critical voices, and severe restrictions on press and academic freedom.
“There is a direct correlation between the space people have to discuss and demand better policies and success [este tipo de] Negotiations,” says Richard Pearshouse, director of the Environment and Human Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, adding, “We will not get an ambitious climate policy that ends funding for fuel subsidies, intensively decarbonizes industries, or impacts climate most at risk Groups without activists, journalists, environmental groups and independent scientists who can highlight the urgency of these issues.”
One of the aspects of the summit that drew the most criticism was the location where it will be held, as Sharm El Sheikh is a city that is difficult to access for the majority of the Egyptian population as the city is located in the south of the Sinai Peninsula, away from the major urban centers of the country. These characteristics have made it the Egyptian authorities’ preferred option to hold international conferences from social mobilizations such as counter-summits and protests, which are very common at climate summits.
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For COP27, South Sinai Governor Khaled Fouda said in an interview with local broadcaster Sada Elbalad that they had set up a “fancy” room for protests in Sharm El Sheikh. But he added that only those who have registered will have access, and the site’s guidelines limit access times from 10am to 5pm. “The room designated by the Egyptian authorities for protests is a joke,” enthuses Bahey eldin Hassan, director of the Institute for Human Rights Studies in Cairo. “The Egyptian authorities’ approach to activism and civil society space is simply too repressive to allow for a traditional COP,” he adds.
In the days leading up to the summit, authorities have arrested at least 138 people in different governorates, following a vague call on social media for Egyptians to demonstrate on November 11, coinciding with COP27, about the situation in the country , as documented by 12 local rights groups. Another measure that has led to complaints about limited accessibility to the conference was a “coordinated increase” in hotel prices in Sharm El Sheikh by the authorities, as explained by a group of UN experts anticipating the launch of the spike. In the face of criticism, organizers have finally made more affordable housing possible, but some activists regret acting too late.
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On the other hand, at least five independent Egyptian organizations that have been targeted by the authorities for years have been denied access to the summit. In this sense, accreditations for COPs can be achieved in two ways: by applying for observer status with the UN body responsible for these events (UNFCCC) or through individual accreditations open to organizations from the host country which are administered in the first instance by the government .
Egypt was tasked with hosting COP27 in November 2021, but deadlines made it impossible for the country’s civil society to arrive in time to obtain observer status. And as a member of one of the isolated organizations told EL PAÍS on condition of anonymity, the extraordinary process by which the government has allowed multiple groups to apply for individual membership has only been made available to handpicked organizations. “Therefore, COP27 will be full of government-controlled NGOs,” he says. The list of NGOs authorized by the UNFCCC includes 36 from Egypt and only one appears to have observer status. The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Presidency of COP27 have not responded to requests from this outlet for their position. And the UNFCCC has not made it clear whether it can ensure that some civil society groups are not excluded on political grounds.
In the days leading up to its launch, COP27 has taken on even more Orwellian overtones. The official mobile application for the event, developed by the government for example, only allows you To by providing details such as your phone number and passport number. And its terms and conditions describe that the application could use information such as location data and access to camera, photos and WiFi for security purposes.
In this sense, in the previous interview with Sada Elbalad, Governor Fouda explained that under the pretext of controlling drivers, they have equipped 500 taxis in Sharm El Sheikh with cameras that record images and sound and connect to a security center.
The fears for this surveillance request also have a precedent. In 2019, a summit of the African Commission on Human and International Law, the African Union’s main body on human rights, in Sharm El Sheikh was already criticized by members of some participating groups for the restrictions and intimidation received.
“Usually,” says this host [sesiones de] the African Commission is usually very receptive,” notes Diana Gichengo, who was present as a member of the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC). “That’s why we didn’t expect security officials to be so vigilant and even aggressive in Egypt,” adds the researcher, who confirms that they only noticed a change after delegates had expressed their discomfort.
calls for solidarity
In a bid to capitalize on the international attention Egypt is drawing after the summit, 12 human rights organizations in the country have formed an ad hoc coalition to emphasize the need to combine climate justice and political freedoms to call for an inclusive COP27 and to demand the release of political prisoners and an end to repression. Most worrying is the case of activist Alaa Abdelfatá, one of the most prominent political prisoners of the country, which has been on hunger strike for more than 200 days and has announced that drinking water will also be cut off when the summit begins.
A petition summarizing the above demands has been signed by more than 300 organizations and 1,000 individuals. Those who have shown their support include groups like Amnesty International and the Climate Action Network (CAN), as well as activists like Greta Thunberg and Naomi Klein. But others, like Greenpeace, have refused to join.
“Egypt, host of COP27, has always been a moral dilemma for the climate justice community and it is clear that how to deal with it has been talked about for months,” says film director Omar Robert Hamilton, a cousin of Abdelfatá and active in the campaign. “The coalition proposal stimulated and clarified, and in the end it forced this conversation into a more public arena,” he concludes.
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