SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — On the third day, the smell of burgers wafted through the air. All around the courtyard of the vast conference complex where this year’s United Nations global climate summit is being held, hungry delegates perked up.
“I haven’t eaten much here,” said Sylvia Muia, a Kenyan reporter for Climate Tracker who had followed her nose Tuesday afternoon to a line that stretched across the entire courtyard. At the front of it was a kiosk selling $12 burgers, the first hot food available in the area all conference.
Told that kiosk workers had promised more food by Wednesday, she laughed. “That’s a bit late,” she said. “Uh, we’re already starving.”
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It was early days yet, but COP27 was already drawing joking comparisons to the Fyre Festival, the catastrophically fraudulent 2017 music festival in the Bahamas where attendees were left clawing for wet mattresses and cold sandwiches when the luxury villas, pig roasts and celebrity acts that had been advertised failed to materialize.
The conference in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh had plenty of headliners, not to mention real beds. But a distinct shortage of food and water as some 40,000 delegates descended on the conference was causing audible consternation.
When the conference opened Sunday, the venue’s only restaurant, a buffet with roughly 200 seats, was briskly feeding attendees.
But Monday and Tuesday, as world leaders claimed the summit stage and the crowds grew, most of the climate activists, oil and gas executives, government negotiators, and other dignitaries found themselves waiting in hot, hourlong lines at a handful of kiosks selling overpriced Nescafe coffee and pastries, which ran out by midafternoon.
The world leaders were not much better off. The VIP tent where they sat before delivering their speeches was empty of food by about 6 p.m. Monday.
Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, began waiting to go onstage around that time, leaving her hungry for more than two hours as the speeches ran into delays.
A few pavilions showcasing events and exhibits sponsored by various U.N. agencies, countries and nongovernmental groups offered dried mango, candy or espresso — a rare commodity. But a substantial lunch was hard to come by.
Some delegations resorted to sending an emissary to the nearest pizza place; others subsisted on protein bars or food pocketed from their hotel breakfast buffets.
Dozens of office-style coolers around the venue promised drinking water. Unfortunately, most were empty and seldom resupplied. The few that did have water often lacked cups to drink it with. Plastic bottles of water became a common sight — not ideal for a conference about saving the planet.
Before the summit, Egypt had announced that Sharm el-Sheikh would go green. Cloth bags and biodegradable food packaging replaced plastic cutlery and bags; recycling bins were supplied, and solar panels went up. The delegates shuttled around in electric buses or buses fueled by natural gas, which Egypt said burns cleaner than other fuels.
“The opportunity of hosting COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh gave us more motivation to change the whole city,” Yasmine Fouad, Egypt’s environmental minister, told Arab News before the summit.
But everywhere you looked, good intentions were going awry.
As thousands of delegates left the conference in the evening, traffic jams outside the venue meant they had to wait for buses for 45 minutes or longer.
At the venue, it was easy to find colorful new bins for recycling paper, plastic and cans. But places to throw away other waste were scarce.
By day’s end Monday, many of the recycling bins were filled with trash.
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