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Welcome to the first installment of the country profiles series!
What do you know about Egypt's efforts to combat climate change? What do you think of Egypt’s progress so far? Is their economy strongly coupled with CO2 emissions? Are the emissions directly related to the population increases?
Well what do you think about their green projects?
Egypt is a country which is in a middle of a volatile region. They have to balance national security with rapidly changing social situations. Egypt is a country that will be directly impacted by climate change especially at the coast of the country.
Water shortages combined with an exploding population means that water scarcity is becoming a very real issue. We are already seeing tensions between Egypt 🇪🇬 and Ethiopia 🇪🇹 regarding the use of water in the Nile.
As you can see the country's water resources have been in steep decline since the 1960s[4].
There are multiple reasons as to why the Egyptian water resources per capita have been steadily falling but the main reason is the explosion in population size. Take a look at the population graph down below!
We can see that the population size and the available water resources per capita work inversely to each other which makes sense! The amount of water in Egypt is not changing but the demand for it is increasing due population size. Another major factor is manufacturing.
As the Egyptian economy matures, more manufacturing will be taking place (although this is not always the case). Manufacturing processes are notorious users of water [11].
Post Arab Spring there have been consistent shortages of electricity and water. Petrol at fuel stations was in relatively short supply. All of these things together have propelled the government to start a series of green projects to minimise Egypt’s dependence on fossil fuels.
This comes in the form of gigantic investments in renewable energy (like the Benban solar park) and the construction of multiple new modern & smart cities which will utilise new technologies to minimise the inefficiencies in the utilities sector.
If we overlay the CO2 emissions and the GDP of egypt we'll be able to draw some conclusions.
While the country's CO2 emissions have steadily increased, the GDP has been on a wild ride. from 2005-2015 the GDP growth was incredible but then IMF austerity measures came into effect. The country agreed to them in order to secure funding for some of the schemes mentioned below. Egypt's GDP growth between 2018-2019 was at an even greater pace than before.
These high rates of economic growth don't seem to be strongly linked to carbon emissions but a link does exist. I'd classify Egypt as a country with a loose Economic-Carbon coupling.
Other countries like the United Kingdom have managed to decouple their economic performance from their carbon emissions.
The country's energy mix [5] largely constitutes of oil and natural gas however there are other sources of energy like hydropower, coal and biofuels.
To be able to afford all of this the country’s economy has to get bigger. Not only will this allow to afford these projects but it will also give Egypt access to larger loans to be able to complete other projects.
As we can see the last decade has been very difficult for Egypt fiscally however it seems that they're back on track for strong GDP growth. In fact they're one of a very select few to experience a growth in their GDP in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic raged on...
An economy that grows during a pandemic is a resilient economy. This will be integral for Egypt's survivability in the future as the globe continues to warm.
Let's take a look at some of Egypt's green projects...
Modern & Smart Cities [6,7,8,9]:
New Administrative Capital
Will house the main government departments & ministries, as well as foreign embassies
New Alamein
Centre of education, tourism (medical) & government.
New Galala
Mainly for Congestion reduction & the new Olympic village
New Mansoura
Largely residential focused with tourism spots
High Speed (HS) Rail [10]:
1000km of HS rail connecting new and old cities from the Mediterranean to the red sea
Water sources - Desalination [11]:
47 New desalination plants will be built by 2025 (enough for 6 million residents to use per day!)
Decent Life Initiative [12]:
Provide opportunities for the most disadvantaged in society including orphans and villages under the poverty line
There are many more initiatives being embarked on within Egypt which will be added to this document in the future. Sign up as a subscriber to keep up with the live updates!
Although between 2018 and 2019 Egypt's CO2 emissions dropped, it's still too early to tell whether or not these schemes will be effective at reducing the country's CO2 output but it does seem promising.
What do you think of Egypt's performance thus far?
References:
[1] Population, total Data [Internet]. Data.worldbank.org. 2019 Available from: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL
[2] Data supplement to the Global Carbon Budget 2020 [Internet]. ICOS. 2020 Available from: https://www.icos-cp.eu/science-and-impact/global-carbon-budget/2020
[3] World Economic Outlook Databases [Internet]. IMF. 2020 Available from: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/SPROLLs/
[4] AQUASTAT - FAO's Global Information System on Water and Agriculture [Internet]. Fao.org. Available from: http://www.fao.org/aquastat/en/
[5] Egypt - Countries & Regions - IEA [Internet]. IEA. 2021 Available from: https://www.iea.org/countries/egypt
[6] Egypt unveils plans to build new capital east of Cairo [Internet]. BBC News. 2015 Available from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31874886
[7] Updates on New Alamein City amid PM visit [Internet]. EgyptToday. 2019 Available from: https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/74155/Updates-on-New-Alamein-City-amid-PM-visit
[8] A Bright Future at Galala City [Internet]. Propertyfinder.eg. 2020 Available from: https://www.propertyfinder.eg/blog/en/galala-city/
[9] Everything You Need to Know About the New Mansoura City [Internet]. Propertyfinder.eg. 2019 Available from: https://www.propertyfinder.eg/blog/en/new-mansoura-city/
[10] Decent Life Initiative [Internet]. Presidency.eg. 2019 Available from: https://www.presidency.eg/en/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A6%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A9/%D9%85%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%AD%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%A9-%D9%83%D8%B1%D9%8A%D9%85%D8%A9/
[11] Water Use and Reuse in Manufacturing [Internet]. Fluencecorp.com. 2018 Available from: https://www.fluencecorp.com/manufacturing-water-use/