What StartupLand is hoping to get out of COP27: All eyes are on Sharm El Sheikh today as we kick off COP27, with the broader focus being on how countries will be able to set aside their differences and challenges to follow up on pledges from last year’s Glasgow-hosted COP26. It aims to turn climate pledges into action, despite geopolitical tensions that could derail commitments. For StartupLand, many of the same overarching themes — including accessible climate financing, a conversation about loss and damage, and focusing on developing nations — are filtering through to their list of priorities. Enterprise spoke with several startups and investors about what they hope to see from the annual climate-focused event, what it would take for them to deem it successful, and what they hope to achieve from taking part.

Emerging markets should be a priority: Encouraging more global capital investments in climate innovations in EMs rather than more developed nations should be a central focus, electric mobility startup Shift EV CEO and co-founder Aly Eltayeb believes. “It doesn’t make sense to overinvest in reducing emissions at a very expensive cost In Norway for example. There are gigatonnes of CO2 that can be eliminated in emerging markets at a fraction of the price,” he told Enterprise.

And there’s an eye on the criteria for MENA investments: Plastic upcycling brand Up-Fuse cofounder Yara Yassin would like to see what’s in the bag for MENA in regards to sustainable environmental precautions and steps. “I want to learn more about the opportunities [investors] are bringing for startups and businesses that support sustainable living in general,” she said. Yassin is looking to better understand the criteria in which social enterprise investors decide on which companies to invest in.

Global climate investors need to take notes, Eltayeb said, stressing the necessity that investors “look beyond their Norwegian-Californian-German markets to the rest of the world.” “This is a historic moment, you have climate as a way to spur innovation globally and to achieve a lot of the developmental goals that could only happen with capital flowing around the world,” he said.

Difficult global conditions, but: COP27 could be a great chance for different nations to work together towards a shared goal and push with the goals of the Paris Agreement without being distracted by some of the disagreements that have cropped up, Eltayeb said.

Making headway on putting a monetary value on climate protection would be considered a successful outcome, the founders of the Climate Resilience Fund (CSF) say. “Any actionable progress on defining a monetary value attributable to climate protection initiatives is a win, because it unlocks private capital and delivers impact at scale,” the fund’s Hossam Allam, who is also a founder of Cairo Angels, told Enterprise.

CSF hopes to see “actionable progress on a common accounting system for the value of nature,” Sherief Kesseba, one of the CSF’s partners told Enterprise, pointing at a marketplace that motivates parties to restore habitat. He hopes the summit leads to recognizing African agriculture as a “potential game changer for carbon capture and biodiversity” and bringing in reforms of the carbon marketplace where credits substitute subsidies. “So that farmers globally are incentivized to invest in regenerating land rather than degenerating it,” he said.

The newly-established CSF has been making news on the climate front before COP27 after it announced in September that it plans to raise USD 25 mn gathered from investors within two years of its launch. Some 50% of the yet-to-be-raised funds will go into Egypt, while the rest will be earmarked for pan-African solutions and startups. These startups should provide sustainable agriculture and “nature-positive” solutions to the climate crisis.

Others are looking at the conference as a chance to exchange expertise and showcase their projects. Waste management company Tagaddod CEO and co-founder Nour El Assal (My Morning Routine) wants to share the model that his startup is building in Egypt and build on future corrections. He hopes to exchange experience, understand more about what people are doing in other markets and “understand the status of the world towards moving to a greener climate.” El Assal sees the summit as a chance for attendees to see what other countries and businesses are doing, noting that many successful green initiatives have emerged from large-scale conferences and expos.

Up-Fuse wants to meet people from international organizations that would be interested in implementing a similar model, Yassin tells us. For her, a key goal is to meet policy makers during the conference, and organizations that would be interested in incubating ideas and projects similar to what is offered by her startup, including the International Organization for Migration, the UN Human Rights Commission, and others.

These startups are also looking for some exposure for their business at the summit: Shift EV, Tagaddod, and Up-Fuse will all be present at the Green Zone. Shift EV is powering some of the summit’s logistics with their electrofitted vehicles, El Tayeb tells us. “We’re proud to provide vehicles to move goods around the conference that are zero carbon,” he said, with the startup having a booth in the Egyptian pavilion in the Green Zone. Shift EV will participate in several panels and events throughout the summit as well, he said. Up-Fuse will also share a booth with the Egyptian Clothing Bank (ECA) in the Green Zone, Yassin said. She’ll also be a speaker in several events in the summit’s Green and Blue Zones.

The hot-button issue of loss and damage that Egypt is trying to press during the conference also got some attention. Egypt wants to prioritize the conversation on compensation for countries that have experienced major economic losses on the back of climate change and its consequences. “This is an understandable and even [a] fair ask, but we don’t believe it will materialize as direct compensation. Rather it may come in the form of grants for projects that support the climate, especially from the perspective of rebalancing atmospheric carbon or rehabilitating nature,” Allam said.