Is it appropriate that COP27 should take place in Egypt?

Taoiseach Micheál Martin will be among 120 world leaders who will attend COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, which begins in Egypt next week.

COP (Conference of the Parties) was a treaty that came into force in 1994. The summit was attended by the countries that signed the United Nations Framework on Climate Change(UNFCCC).

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has changed his mind and is now to attend. US President Joe Biden will not be present for the leaders summit because of the US midterm elections. India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin are not expected to attend. What if Putin did turn up?

But is it appropriate that it should take place in Egypt? Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi, who has been in power since 2014, could hardly be considered a democratically elected leader.

In conversation with a young Egyptian, recently arrived in Ireland, he assured me that el-Sisi is a dictator.