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sharm el sheikh [Egypt]Nov. 19 (ANI): US climate envoy John Kerry has tested positive for COVID-19 at the UN’s COP27 climate summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
With just hours to go until an international climate agreement is reached, his spokesman, Whitney Smith, confirmed Kerry’s positive report on COVID-19, according to CNN.
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Smith said in a statement that Kerry was “experiencing mild symptoms” and self-isolating at the summit. As negotiations entered a critical phase, he was “working over the phone with his negotiating team and foreign counterparts to ensure a successful COP27.”
Egypt’s COP president took a relaxed stance on COVID-19 at the meeting​​. According to CNN, organizers do not require participants to be vaccinated or test negative for Covid-19 at the time of registration, but they “strongly recommend” that participants get vaccinated before arriving.
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Masks are also entirely optional and are rarely seen inside the venue — although there has been a noticeable increase in wearing them over the past few days.
As the number of people who tested positive increased and word of a possible outbreak began to spread, more and more attendees started wearing masks. Still, even on Friday, as news broke that Kerry had tested positive, most people were still not wearing masks, according to CNN.
The Chinese delegation stood out, strictly requiring anyone who wanted to step into the China Pavilion to wear a mask and sanitize their hands.
The top U.S. climate negotiator is sick; the final Friday of the annual summit is always a critical time for negotiators to strike a deal that nearly 200 countries can agree to.
But this year the issues are particularly thorny — according to CNN, the U.S. has shown strong opposition to the key issue of the Loss and Damage Fund, which will help the world’s developing and most vulnerable nations recover from the crisis. recovering from a climate catastrophe they had no intention of causing.
Loss and damage aren’t the only issues that stand out. World leaders at COP27 are also frantically trying to strike a deal that would guarantee the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
Just hours before the Sharm el-Sheikh summit is due to officially end on Friday – as negotiators are dismantling the venue – this year’s COP president, Sameh Shoukry, reportedly said he was “concerned” about the lack of progress so far at the summit CNN.
“I remain concerned about many unresolved issues, including funding, mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage and their interlinkages,” Shoukry said at the meeting.
“Today, we need to shift gears again. Time is not on our side,” he added. (Arnie)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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