Meeting Egypt’s Environmental Challenges

While Egypt has made notable improvements in certain environmental sectors, it also remains one of the region’s worst polluters. The country hosted the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (known as COP27), offering it an opportunity to help advance the global environmental agenda, particularly in relation to recovery and regeneration. But the need for domestic action in Egypt is rapidly becoming more pressing. 

In 2019, Egypt’s overall ecological footprint per capita was 5.3 times higher than its per capita biocapacity, meaning that its combined imports of biocapacity through trade, liquidation of national ecological assets, and carbon dioxide emissions were greater than its ecosystems could absorb. Over the last 30 years, its average temperature increased by some 1.6 degrees Celsius, and may soon reach temporary hikes of as high as 3 degrees Celsius due to passing phenomena such as the El Niño climate pattern.

As the World Bank’s November 2022 Country Climate and Development Report for Egypt noted, “High temperatures and more heat waves will raise the already high evaporation rate, accelerate crop transpiration, functionally increase soil aridity, and elevate water requirements for human consumption and agriculture.” Rising sea levels are accelerating coastal degradation and threaten to inundate the Nile Delta, potentially displacing millions of residents and taking large tracts of arable land out of cultivation in one of the world’s three major “hotspots for vulnerability,” according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  

For Egypt to meet these and other environmental challenges in ways that are both economically feasible and socially desirable, it must work effectively with its civil society and foreign partners. This will require transparency and inclusion in the design, implementation, and post-delivery phases of its environmental mitigation and adaptation strategies, among other important elements.

To discuss what is being done to tackle Egypt’s environmental challenges in a sample of sectors, the cascading impacts of climate change on the country, and the potential costs of maladaptation, the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center is organizing a panel discussion on January 11, at 4:00 P.M. Beirut time with Nadine Wahab, and Yasmine Hussein.

The discussion will be held in English and moderated by Olivia Lazard.

Viewers may submit their questions to the panelists using the live chat feature on Facebook and YouTube.

For more information, please contact Najwa Yassine at najwa.yassine@carnegie-mec.org.