Hundreds of environmental advocates on Saturday called on industrialized nations at the UN climate summit in Egypt to pay for the impact of global warming, the largest demonstration yet that came as German officials raised concerns about possible surveillance and intimidation of delegates and other conference attendees.
Protests have mostly been muted at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27), which is taking place in the seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Environmental advocates blamed high cost of travel and accommodation, as well as restrictions in the isolated city, for limiting numbers of demonstrators.
The protesters marched through the summit’s “blue zone,” which is considered UN territory and governed by the global body’s rules. That has given the demonstrators a bit more space to voice their opinions than in the rest of the country, where the Egyptian government essentially bars protests.
Photo: Reuters
Still, there were signs that Egypt was attempting to exert pressure inside the conference venue. Attendees of events at the German pavilion have complained about being photographed and filmed by people unknown to them in the days after Germany hosted an event there with the sister of a jailed Egyptian democracy advocate.
“We expect all participants in the UN climate conference to be able to work and negotiate under safe conditions,” the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “This is not just true for the German but for all delegations, as well as representatives of civil society and the media. We’re in continuous contact with the Egyptian side on this.”
Egyptian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Photo: AFP
During Saturday’s rally, protesters chanted, sang and danced in an area not far from where the negotiations were taking place. Past climate talks have traditionally seen very large protests at the end of the first week of the two-week summit, often drawing thousands of people. This year has been mostly muted, with sporadic and small demonstrations during the first week.
“Pay for loss and damage now,” said Friday Nbani, a Nigerian environmental advocate who was leading a group of African protesters.
Many protesters, alongside several vulnerable countries, have called for “loss and damage” payments, or financing to help pay for climate-related harms, to be central to negotiations.
“Africa is crying, and its people are dying,” Nbani said.
Protesters also called for drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions being pumped into the atmosphere.
Emissions continue to rise, but scientists say that the amount of heat-trapping gases need to be almost halved by 2030 to meet the temperature-limiting goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Protesters chanted: “Keep it in the ground” in reference to their rejection of the continued extraction of fossil fuels.
On Friday, some protesters heckled US President Joe Biden’s speech and raised an orange banner that read: “People vs. Fuels,” before being removed. One of the protesters, Jacob Johns, had his access to the conference revoked as a result.
“It’s just a great way to silence indigenous voices nationally and globally,” said Johns, a member of the Akimel O’otham and Hopi nations in the US.
The 39-year-old said that he went to the speech to protest Washington’s new program to encourage more corporate purchases of carbon offsets — a scheme for companies to get credits to pollute by contributing to the removal of carbon from the atmosphere.
However, what really angered the veteran climate campaigner was that Biden mentioned indigenous knowledge and efforts in his speech.
It was “just a really good big slap in the face to climate action,” Johns said.
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