The fight against global warming requires the mobilization of everyone. This boundless disruption of unprecedented proportions is already being felt everywhere, regardless of the nature of the regimes of the countries already most exposed. No amount of nationalist rhetoric will make him back down. Only the path of solidarity will make it possible to respond to a crisis that is already unfolding its devastating effects and that requires a fundamentally multilateral response.
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It is therefore logical and satisfying that due to the ongoing rotation between continents since the beginning of the Conferences of the Parties on climate change, the 2022 Conference in 2022 will be hosted by a major African country, Egypt. In the hope that the voice of the South will be heard all the better there.
It is equally important that the holding of this international conference in the seaside resort of Sharm El-Sheikh on the Red Sea coast is an opportunity to reiterate how painful human rights are being violated by the regime of President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, who died on November 7th should be enthroned with a hundred heads of state and government in the center of the family photo.
The latter is a past master at managing a form of strategic pension. It allows it to benefit from the forbearance of countries that claim to be heart and soul in defending principles and values. This can be seen, for example, in the reluctance of the Joe Biden administration, which has only marginally reduced American aid to Egypt since arriving in the White House.
A timidity that is also illustrated in the case of France by President Emmanuel Macron’s emblematic bestowal of the Legion of Honor on this perfect example of a potentate in 2020. These countries claim to be strong advocates for human rights in the intimacy of their face-to-face meetings with Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi. His results don’t really seem to validate the effectiveness of this approach.
silence of civil society
Imprisoned far from Sharm El-Sheikh, Alaa Abd El-Fattah, one of the figures of the 2011 revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak, commemorated this situation with a dramatic gesture, intensifying the hunger strike it is leading to to stop the Denounce prison conditions Egyptian prisons of sinister reputation. Now he is risking his own life. The fate of this left-wing activist, who has spent most of the past nine years in jail left to his own devices, exemplifies that of the 60,000 political prisoners, Islamists and liberals alike, languishing in the Egyptian strongman’s jails.
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Remembering the gags of Egyptian civil society at a climate summit is all the less trivial given that the latter also has a leading role to play in the matter. Despite a vague promise of political dialogue, President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi’s iron fist is preventing it by putting his full weight on organizing, operating and funding Egyptian environmental defense groups.
It thus prevents society from interfering in a vital debate, blocking even the slightest discussion on the legitimacy of presidential projects that might contradict the adjustment efforts needed in a country already on the brink.
The “stability” argument inevitably used by authoritarian regimes must not obscure the well-documented evidence that a dictatorship is no more sustainable than fossil fuels.