Mumtaz Moosa Saley | mumtazs@icloud.com
1 min read | 14:00

Photo Credit: BBC
Billboard announcing COP27 in Egypt

The UN’s 27^th conference on climate is set to begin on the 6th of November 2022 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg has announced that she would not attend the COP27 United Nations climate change conference as she condemned the human rights abuses within the country. 

On Sunday, Thunberg visited a sit-in outside the UK foreign office in solidarity with Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a British-Egyptian writer imprisoned in Egypt. Abdel Fattah, an activist who called for an assembly for free speech, was an icon in the 2011 Egyptian revolution and has spent eight out of the past ten years in jail for various charges. 

At least 60 000 political prisoners are estimated to have been jailed since President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi overthrew Mohamed Morsi.

Residents in Sharm-El-Shaikh have reported that the tourist site has become a war zone with dozens of security personnel. While others are calling the COP27 greenwashing and stating that the UN meeting is nothing progressive as it allows leaders to change climate structure slowly over the next few years, and it has no real change to it.