U.S. President Joe Biden is due to appear for a short visit at a major UN climate conference in Egypt’s resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Friday.
The stopover comes days after dozens of world leaders gathered in the Red Sea resort for a summit parallel to the climate conference, known as COP27.
Biden is expected to give an address at the event, set to highlight U.S. efforts to curb climate-harming emissions.
Representatives from around 200 countries are grappling at the COP27 conference with how global warming can still be contained and how climate damage mitigation can be financed.
The two weeks of meetings are taking place amid multiple crises, including food and energy shortages as well as rising inflation in economies across the world – a general situation made worse by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Biden’s stop at Sharm el-Sheikh is the first leg in a tour that is also taking him to a gathering of South-east Asian nations in Cambodia and a summit of leaders of the Group of 20 (G20), the world’s largest economies, on the Indonesian island of Bali.
COP27 marks 30 years since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted and seven years since the Paris Agreement was agreed upon at COP21.
An annual event, the ‘Conference of the Parties’ or ‘COP’ brings together the governments which have signed the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, or the Paris Agreement.
World leaders, ministers, and negotiators come together to agree on how to jointly address climate change and its impacts.
Civil society, businesses, international organisations, and the media ‘observe’ proceedings to bring transparency, as well as broader perspectives, to the process.
With the strapline, ‘Together for implementation,’ COP27 will be an African COP and the first of two COPS in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
COP26 in 2021 was jointly hosted in Glasgow, Scotland by the UK and Italy, who continue to hold the COP presidency until COP27 begins.
COP28 will be held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2023.