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Ahead of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP27), the Egyptian government announced its sponsorship by the Coca-Cola company. Egypt is hosting the annual conference in Sharm-El Sheikh, from November 6-18, 2022.

In response, Defend Our Health’s Senior Market Campaigner, Maya Rommwatt, said: 

“There’s absolutely no reason why COP27 should be sponsored by Coca-Cola, a company with a business model that relies upon plastic bottles that are made from oil and gas, and refuses to acknowledge how plastic production both drives the climate crisis and threatens the health of consumers and fenceline communities near points of production. 

Petrochemical plastic production is expected to dramatically increase in the next decades, driven in large part by companies like Coca-Cola, precisely when the world is attempting to transition to clean energy. If allowed to continue, the increase in plastic made from oil and gas could negate all the gains made in that transition.

Coca-Cola’s ubiquitous plastic beverage bottles are made with a number of chemicals that endanger human health, especially at sites of production, which are more often in communities of color and low-income communities. The fenceline residents who are forced to breathe toxic chemicals are also at the frontlines of the climate crisis. They are often the first to experience deadly hurricanes, floods, and sea-level rise, and often the last to receive emergency assistance. If Coca-Cola wants to be a climate leader, it must get serious about moving to large-scale reuse systems and end the production of dangerous petrochemical plastic bottles.”