Egypt calls for affordable climate finance at COP31 Leaders’ Summit in Antalya

Egypt’s Minister of Local Development and Environment Manal Awad represented President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at the leaders’ summit of the COP31 UN climate conference in the Turkish city of Antalya on Wednesday, calling for affordable climate finance for developing countries and a shift from pledges to delivery.

• Egypt’s priorities
• An unusual presidency

The two-day summit, held on 11 and 12 November under the theme “Towards a Sustainable, Resilient and Equitable Future”, was opened by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and attended by UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Egypt’s environment ministry said representatives of 95 countries took part.

Egypt’s priorities

Awad said Egypt wanted the conference to move to real implementation in four areas: expanding clean electricity, moving away from fossil fuels, providing affordable climate finance for developing countries, and strengthening resilience to global warming.

She said financial and technical support for developing countries topped the agenda, amid growing calls to speed up funding for adaptation, for loss and damage, and for the transition to a low-carbon economy. The opening sessions focused on the links between climate change and food security, agriculture and public health, including more efficient water use and more resilient food systems, she said.

Egypt is presenting its vision for “just climate action” at the summit, Awad said. She is also taking part in a session of African environment ministers and the D-8 group of developing countries, and holding bilateral meetings to promote green investment.

An unusual presidency

COP31 runs from 9 to 20 November at the Antalya Expo Centre. It is the first UN climate conference to be led under a shared arrangement agreed at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, last year, which ended a long standoff between Turkey and Australia, both of which had bid to host the 2026 talks.

Under the deal, Turkey hosts the conference and holds the presidency through its environment minister Murat Kurum, while Australia’s climate and energy minister Chris Bowen serves as “President of Negotiations”, with authority to run the formal talks in consultation with Turkey. A pre-COP meeting was held in Fiji in October to give Pacific states a greater voice.

Kurum has said he wants Antalya to focus on turning existing climate commitments into action rather than setting new targets, and the presidency is drafting an Antalya Declaration for leaders to endorse. Holding the leaders’ summit on the third and fourth days of the conference, rather than at the start, is meant to give political momentum to the negotiators. Leaders who did not speak this week will deliver their national statements on 17 and 18 November.

Egypt hosted COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh in 2022, where countries agreed to set up a fund for loss and damage suffered by vulnerable nations.