Last November, Egypt hosted the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP27. In preparatory meetings, its government criticized the hypocrisy of high-emission countries that have failed to adequately support developing countries in facing climate impacts. That criticism is entirely justified.
But the undeniable failures of high-emission countries do not alleviate the need to scrutinize Egypt’s own environmental record. And that barely happened during the climate talks, held in the Sinai Peninsula resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh. That is not because there hasn’t been independent environmental activism in Egypt but because Egypt’s repressive government has severely curtailed that movement as part of its efforts to silence
