Photo by Fayez Nureldine / AFP via Getty Images
Minutes into the opening ceremony for the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference, a speaker greeted the audience of world leaders as they filtered into the plenary session, a speaker: “We welcome you to COP27, meeting for the first time in Sharm el-Sheikh, the first green city.”
This honorific has already shaped the way attending delegations are talking about the conference, including, bizarrely, by prompting ostentatious photoshoots of some of the most powerful people in the world posing with bicycles. Notably absent was climate activist Greta Thunberg, who last week called COP27 an opportunity for leaders to engage in “greenwashing, lying and cheating.” And never mind the dubious title of “first” green city, when the Egyptian government had bestowed the designation upon another city mere months ago.
The entire spectacle raises the question: Just what exactly is a green city?