The world climate conference COP27 has started in Egypt. But while the high-ranking guests are housed in an artificial eco-city, Egyptian environmentalists are behind bars. What activists think of the first (almost) protest-free climate summit.
By Masha Malburg
Sharm al-Sheikh on Sunday morning: Brightly printed electric buses take visitors to the congress center in the seaside resort on the southern tip of Sinai. Shallow waves lap the sandy beach. Thousands of new solar panels glitter in front of the mountains. This is what the cameras of the international television crews who have traveled to the 27th World Climate Conference show.
There are two stories that can be told about this place: that of the first climate conference on African soil, hosted by a country that, like so many in the region, is suffering more from the climate crisis than it is to blame for it. A country in which young people in particular want to work on their own solutions – and hold the polluters from the Global North to account.