State Scrutiny and Midnight Disturbances Make Egypt’s COP27 the Most Chilling of Climate Talks

Laura Millan Lombrana and John Ainger
·6 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- Last-minute hotel cancelations, late night disturbances and eavesdropping at high-level meetings are turning the COP27 climate talks in Egypt into a sinister experience for environmental activists and country negotiators alike.

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The incidents — recounted to Bloomberg by several conference attendees — offer a glimpse of life in a country where protests are effectively banned and criticism of the government severely curtailed. Though Egypt has released a few hundred political prisoners this year, thousands more languish in jails, often without proper trial. Climate campaigners, usually a major presence at the UN’s flagship two-week event, had already reported unprecedented hurdles obtaining accreditation and securing accommodation for this year’s conference. The relatively small number who made it have seen their difficulties worsen since arriving in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh nearly a week ago, according to multiple accounts from delegates, most of whom asked to remain unnamed to avoid problems with Egyptian authorities. Egypt Crushes at Home the Climate Action it Champions AbroadIn one instance, three young government delegates were thrown onto the street late at night after refusing to pay $450 a night for a room — because they’d already paid the agreed price of $150 in advance, according to a country official, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue. In another, as many as 80 young activists were crammed into dirty rooms full of cigarette ends, some without locks, and were awoken in the middle of the night by hotel personnel asking for their identification.

On her second night in Sharm el-Sheikh, Jo Dodds, president of Australian non-profit Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action, found herself bracing with a can of insect repellent and a knife when unidentified people spent several minutes wrestling with the lock of her apartment door late at night. She yelled in anger and the people eventually left, but the incident left her shaken, she said.

“I didn’t sleep that night,” said Dodds, who intends to raise the issue with Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs. “I was incredibly frightened.”

Inside the conference zones, delegates said unusual incidents had raised suspicions of Egyptian government surveillance. At one high-level meeting held in the so-called Red Zone, where access is restricted and people are escorted in and out, conversations had been underway for several minutes before participants realized that an unidentified Egyptian was sitting in the room. The person rushed out when asked to explain their presence, according to a person who witnessed the incident.Heads of up to 60 country delegations were unable to reach Egyptian officials for the first two days of the summit when world leaders were in town, according to one government official attending the talks. When they were eventually able to get through, they were told the issues had already been resolved, the official said. Wael Aboulmagd, special representative for the Egyptian COP27 presidency, said the host had “addressed some of the specifics that were taken up and brought to our attention” and urged others to continue reporting cases so they could be dealt with. He did not explain the incidents. The uncomfortable experiences have cast a pall over what is usually a lively affair. In past years, COP has drawn thousands of campaigners who hold colorful rallies and events to raise awareness of specific issues and put pressure on world leaders to act. The middle weekend is usually set aside for a series of demonstrations to encourage greater ambition in the second week.Given the pressures this year, only small protests have taken place inside the COP27 venue, with authorities limiting the number permitted to participate and demanding they reveal their slogans in advance, according to campaigners. On Friday morning, about a dozen people danced to the tune of Bonnie Tyler's Holding Out for a Hero, with the chorus adapted to "I need a zero." In the afternoon, a group of doctors administered CPR to a plastic globe representing planet Earth while chanting "1.5 to stay alive." Egypt's Barren Fields Are Dire Climate BellwetherThere’s been only one political protest. A few dozen activists covering their mouths with white cloths stood silent outside the Blue Zone, reserved for registered delegates, on Thursday holding banners that read: “there is no climate justice without human rights.”“In COP26, I remember there being interventions and direct actions constantly – in total they mobilized between 300,000 and 400,000 people,” said Eyal Weintraub, co-founder of Youth for Climate Argentina, referring to last year’s event in Glasgow. “This time, there probably won't be any mobilization or any strike.”

Possibly the most notorious – and public – case of harassment happened during a press conference involving Sanaa Seif, the sister of a prominent Egyptian-British blogger who has been imprisoned for most of the past eight years. On partial hunger strike since April, Alaa Abd el-Fattah vowed to stop drinking water on the first day of COP27 and his family have used the conference to push for his release.

The event, hosted by in a conference room inside the COP27 venue and guarded by UN security personnel, was attended by dozens of journalists and activists — as well as several men who recorded the audience as Seif called on Egyptian authorities to deport her brother to the UK. When the floor was opened for questions, a man later identified as Egyptian MP Amr Darwish took the microphone and proceeded to heckle Seif. As he was escorted out by security, another man stood up to resume the attack. US President Joe Biden said he would raise the issue of human rights, and Abd el-Fattah’s case specifically, during his short visit to COP27 on Friday.Human rights activists said the suppression of debate and heavy-handed surveillance attempts had undermined trust and could affect the outcome of climate talks.

“This has a direct impact,” Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in an interview on the sidelines of the conference. “The Egyptian government is using COP as an opportunity to be able to collect data on people, it exercises mass surveillance under the auspices of security.”Aboulmagd rejected concerns raised by HRW and other organizations over surveillance and dismissed accusations that the COP27 app could be used to access emails and data even after it was uninstalled. While world leaders discuss climate action in Sharm el Sheikh, arbitrary and targeted detentions continue in Egypt, said Karim Ennarah, a member of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. The non-profit organization has documented about 800 prisoners of conscience freed by authorities in the past few months, but the number of people arrested is considerably higher than those freed, according to calculations by several legal aid organizations.

"It looks like for the two weeks of the event people have been able to speak more freely,” Ennarah said, “but a lot of people are afraid about what happens next.”

--With assistance from Akshat Rathi and Oscar Boyd.

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