Fighting the negative impacts of climate change is every nation’s responsibility, and the United States and Egypt have been working together to do so. To showcase some of the countries' combined initiatives and vision for the future, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Egypt jointly held the Building Momentum to UN COP27 forum.
In a keynote address, His Excellency Mostafa Madbouly, the Prime Minister of Egypt, discussed the potential for collaboration between the U.S. and Egypt for public-private partnership, the steps Egypt has taken to become greener, and goals for the future.
The Egyptian Government Has Undertaken More Green Efforts
As a leader in the largest energy-producing region of the world, Egypt has undertaken many efforts to operate greener, despite Egypt accounting for just 1% of global emissions. Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly discussed the actions the Egyptian government has taken recently to empower the private sector.
“First [was] policy reform – [the] introduction of new laws and legislation and amending the existing rules and regulations,” said Madbouly. “Second [was] applying a set of environmental measures to the overall national investment plan [for] 2021-2022, which … was the aim of reaching a 100% green budget by 2030.”
“Third [was] issuing the first-ever green sovereign bonds in the Middle East and North Africa ... to provide new and innovative tools to finance green projects in the area of waste management, clean transport and renewable energies, among others," he continued. “Fourth ... [was setting] the general framework for planning and preparing strategies [for] management of all types of waste, [and] ensuring that planning is linked to financing.”
How Private-Public Partnership Cooperation Between Egypt and the U.S. Is Advancing Climate Solutions
Prime Minister Madbouly encouraged the continued collaboration between the U.S. and Egypt, noting that Egypt looks forward to furthering cooperation with the American private sector. Plans include materializing Egypt’s green policy into projects and programs that would contribute to sustainable development while addressing climate change.
“Egypt attaches great importance to addressing climate change, especially given the far-reaching cross-cutting impacts,” said Madbouly. “We believe that [the] fight against climate change has to be a decisive issue for our era and for generations to come. Hence, we came forward [to host] COP27 and [drive] the global momentum in the fight against climate change.”
Prime Minister Madbouly also said Egypt is committed to working inclusively with all parties to build on the outcomes of COP26 at Glasgow and chart the next steps in the remainder of this critical decade.
Moving Forward Requires Help From Global Partners
Prime Minister Madbouly’s concluded his keynote by outlining the goals and milestones Egypt can accomplish with help from its global partners.
“I am hopeful that this forum and the deliberations and reflections therein will contribute to [a] better understanding of the mutual benefits Egypt and the U.S. can achieve [by] addressing climate change and pushing further green economy and climate-friendly investments in Egypt,” he said.
He called on forum participants to find areas that can benefit from fast-tracking cooperation and partnership between Egypt and the U.S. He also suggested taking steps to identify challenges, barriers, and bottlenecks in the strategic partnership between Egypt and the U.S.
