Wheelchair struggles, scarce drinking water, $15 sandwiches and hotel price-gouging at the COP27 climate summit have sparked anger and forced host country Egypt into damage-control mode, participants at the two-week meet said.
Organising a UN climate conference -- which brings together up to 35,000 people from 195 countries each year -- is a world-class logistical challenge, and veterans of the nearly 30-year process are used to minor inconvenience.
Organisers"haven't clearly instructed the drivers" on how to accommodate people with disabilities, said Gurung, who runs the National Indigenous Disabled Women Association in Nepal. But playing on the acronym, he has dubbed this year's event the"UN Framework Convention on Concrete Curbs". The size of a small town, the COP27 area is a sprawling archipelago of pavilions, meeting rooms, halls connected by bitumen roads that soak up the 30 degree Celsius heat.Journalists in a hangar-like media centre could be seen wrapped in jackets and shawls to protect themselves against the industrial-strength air-conditioning.During the first week of the conference, which runs until November 18, sparse water dispensers stood empty for hours at a stretch.
Exorbitant food prices, including sandwiches going for up to $15, have been especially problematic for those on tight budgets.
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