Thirsty COP27 climate conference marred by glitches | World news
Bicycle riots, insufficient drinking water, $15 sandwiches and high hotel prices at the COP27 climate conference have sparked outrage and forced host country Egypt into corruption control mode, participants at the two-week meeting said.
Organizing a UN climate conference – which brings together 35,000 people from 195 countries each year – is a global logistical challenge, and veterans of the nearly 30-year-old process are used to the inconvenience. small.
But this year’s event in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh has been plagued with problems, participants say, the most basic perhaps being access.
Pratima Gurung, who works with a disability advocacy group, said she and the Krishna Gahatraj Human Rights Fund, who uses a wheelchair, have been left in the middle of the road “several times” while waiting for buses.
Organizers “have not told the drivers clearly” on how to accommodate people with disabilities, said Gurung, who heads the National Disabled Women’s Association in Nepal.
Although there are ramps, participants with physical disabilities say they are not standard, and the UN climate conference has been particularly difficult for them to navigate.
“As a disabled person, the COP is not accessible to me,” said SustainedAbility’s Jason Boberg, who has attended the past five conferences organized by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC.
But playing on the acronym, he has called this year’s event the “United Nations Policy Conference on Concrete Barriers”.
Last year’s meeting in Glasgow also saw access issues, with Israel’s energy minister initially unable to get into his wheelchair.
– ‘The most confusing COP ever’ –
Another frequent complaint in Sharm el-Sheikh is poor and rare signage.
“This is the most confusing COP ever,” said Bianca, a three-time climate conference attendee who asked to be identified only by her first name.
The size of a small city, the COP27 area is a sprawling complex of pavilions, meeting rooms, halls connected by bitumen roads that heat 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).
Journalists in the hangar-like media center can be seen wrapped in jackets and blankets to protect themselves against the company’s strong winds.
Even more problematic and ironic, given the subject at hand, is the scarcity of drinking water.
During the first week of the convention, which runs until November 18, the few water lamps stood empty for hours at a stretch.
Agents took to bringing their own equipment, and some were said to have ignored warnings not to drink desalinated water running from bathroom faucets.
“People who are already under stress” should not “have to search for water all the time”, said a climate COP veteran from an NGO.
Exorbitant food prices, with sandwiches going for up to $15, have been particularly problematic for those on tight budgets.
“I have never seen prices like this in the COP,” said the NGO representative, who declined to be identified.
In response to complaints, organizers on Thursday made drinks free and cut food prices in half for the rest of the conference.
Well before the COP27 begins on November 6, alarm bells are ringing as hotels in tourist cities suddenly triple or quadruple room rates, even for those with confirmed documents.
Some delegates arrived to find that their reservations had been cancelled.
Nigerian youth activist Olumide Idowu wrote on Twitter on Monday that “People are now stuck in cars, sleeping on the road, at bus stops.
At a press conference on Thursday, the special representative of the COP27 president, Wael Aboulmagd, told reporters that “a case where people are asked to leave” will not “happen again”, and that “officials have stepped in. “
