Egypt s Prime Minister Mostafa Mabdouly speaking in a panel discussion dubbed From Glasgow to Sharm El-Sheikh: Combating Climate Change during the second day of the World Youth Forum (WYF) on Tuesday (Photo Courtesy of WYF)
In a session dubbed ‘From Glasgow to Sharm El Sheikh: Combating Climate Change’, Madbouly said that, according to a recent study, Egypt only produces 0.6 percent of the world’s emissions and yet is most susceptible to the implications of climate change.
He said that climate change is a crucial issue globally, stressing the importance of facing it as the biggest challenge of the upcoming period.
Conversations surrounding climate change in the past years have been limited to only speculation and pessimistic views, however, the world has started to see the impact of the crisis now.
Egypt has been speeding up its transition to a green economy while also preparing to host this year’s United Nations’ Conference of Parties on Climate Change (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh next November.
In November 2021, Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi called on developed countries during a speech delivered to the COP26 in Glasgow to fulfill their pledge to provide $100 billion annually to developing countries to address the effects of climate change, highlighting the need to allocate at least half of all public climate finance to adaptation measures.
“Two negotiation tracks have been set to determine the cost of climate change… and here it must be noted that Egypt is among the most vulnerable countries to the impact of climate change,” Madbouly said.
Furthermore, he said that Egypt has become among the top 20 countries globally in passing legislation related to facing climate change, adding that the country encourages investments in renewable energy and will become among the top countries to produce green hydrogen.
Madbouly also stressed on the importance of an institutional framework that regulates the climate change issue, adding that Egypt has established its first National Council on Climate Change to face the phenomenon.
The state has set five main priorities to deal with the crisis: Rationalising conventional energy in petroleum, exploiting natural gas and renewable energy, minimising energy transfer, and launching a national strategy for climate change, he said.
The government is also launching major projects and mechanisms to adapt to or alleviate the effects of climate change, including the country’s recently issued green bonds; the first of their kind in the Middle East!
Additionally, the PM said that key policies have been formulated to encourage the private sector to pump investments in such projects by setting an electricity tariff and converting waste to energy.
A national plan for water resources has also been placed until 2037 due to Egypt’s water scarcity, Madbouly said, adding that several major projects have been established for seawater desalination and wastewater treatment.
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