SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — The Latest on COP27, this year’s annual U.N. summit on climate change.
The mother of a leading jailed Egyptian pro-democracy activist who is on a hunger and water strike went to the prison where her son is held for the third day in a row on Wednesday in hope of getting proof that he is still alive amid increasingly growing concerns about his health.
Alaa Abdel-Fattah, also a U.K. citizen, escalated his months-long hunger strike and stopped drinking water Sunday to coincide with the start of the Egypt-hosted U.N. climate summit on Nov. 6.
His family has been lobbying for his release for months, taking advantage of the international spotlight on Egypt’s human rights record at COP27.
Abdel-Fattah’s mother, Laila Soueif, was unsuccessful on her previous two attempts to receive a letter from her son. Officers told her that he refused to write one.
His family fears that prison authorities might resort to force-feeding him to keep him alive.
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Climate activist Vanessa Nakate has warned against new fossil fuel projects on the African continent at the U.N. climate summit Wednesday, arguing oil and gas are “a dangerous distraction.”
The UNICEF ambassador added that “decades of fossil fuel development has failed to help the 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa without basic electricity access,” adding that any projects in Africa will only serve energy demands in the global north.
Nakate has previously spoken out against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline which would run through her native Uganda.
She feared any new fossil fuel projects would “soon become stranded assets” which would leave “African countries with debts piled upon debt.”
Nakate repeated her calls for rich countries to step up and pay for the damage cause by heat-trapping gases in poorer nations that are more vulnerable to climate change.
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The first phase to a project to establish a major clean hydrogen plant in the Egyptian seaside resort of Ain el-Sokhna was launched by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and the Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre on Wednesday.
The project will have a capacity to produce 100 megawatts of green hydrogen once completed. President el-Sissi said the project “provides a practical model of investment partnership that stimulates sustainable economic development with a focus on the role of the national and foreign private sector.”
Norwegian renewable energy company Scatec will take the lead in developing the project. The company already has a footprint in Egypt, having developed one of the world’s largest solar parks, the Benban solar park in the Aswan region in upper Egypt.
The Egyptian government said in a statement that they intend to work towards producing 8% of the global hydrogen market in the next few years.
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An aid group linked to Denmark’s Lutheran Church says it wants to take responsibility for all of the emissions it has produced worldwide over the past 100 years.
DanChurchAid said Wednesday that from 2023 to 2025 it aims to plant enough trees to absorb the same amount of carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas — as its activities have produced since 1922.
The group acknowledge that there is no agreed method for how to count historic emissions, but that “a rough estimate is better than no estimate” and if in doubt it erred on the high side.
DanChurchAid said that while it can’t undo the damage its emissions have caused, it hopes the measures “will provide inspiration and contribute to the debate about how to address the climate crisis.”
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BERLIN — Climate activists climbed on top of Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate to protest global warming on Wednesday.
The activists from Last Generation unrolled a large poster Wednesday morning saying, “We wish for survival … We are the last generation.”
Members of Last Generation and other climate groups have been protesting across Germany for months, disrupting traffic by gluing themselves to city streets during rush hour or sticking their hands by famous paintings in museums trying to call people’s attention to their cause.
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A few dozen climate activists held a small protest on Wednesday calling on nations to accelerate the transition to clean energy.
Wednesday’s protest was a rare show of activism in at the U.N. conference, known as COP27, taking place in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
The protesters called for an end to new oil and gas exploration and money for renewable energy. The protest comes on COP27′s themed day for finance and was organized by the Netherlands-based Recourse organization that campaigns for investments to be redirected away from fossil fuels and toward renewables.
The protesters sang, chanted and held signs with slogans that read: “Get Finance out of Fossil Fuels,” and “No Gas.”
Several thorny issues have been discussed at the talks, including further cutting greenhouse gas emissions and boosting financial aid for poor countries struggling with the impacts of climate change.
The issue of reparations for climate harms, known as loss and damage, has been put on the negotiation agenda for the first time, with many leaders calling for the implementation of previous financial pledges.
Another group of activists held a protest also demanding a “swift, just and equitable phase-out of fossil fuel.”
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