The Arab Federation for Youth and the Environment (AFYE) launched its 11th forum hosted by the African Cultural Centre at the Nile Museum in the governorates of Aswan and Luxor from 3 to 9 December under the title “The Impact of Climate Change on Heritage Cities”.
The forum was launched a few days after the glitzy ceremony marking the opening of the Avenue of the Sphinxes in Luxor, a city which has been gravely affected over the years by climate change and economic and other conditions.
Climate change has become a cornerstone of many international meetings, because its repercussions, such as rises in temperature and decreases in water resources, threaten world peace and stability. Climate change is a menace to efforts to combat poverty, achieve economic development, increase touristic investments, and preserve heritage cities.
AFYE Secretary-General Mamdouh Rashwan said that tourism was one of the most growing industries in the world and had become one of the most important sectors in the global economy. He explained that to help achieve development programmes, sustainable tourism had been launched as part of the green economy.
He added that heritage cities are home to intellectual, civilisational, and cultural legacies and that they belong to all of humanity and must be preserved. Today, some Arab heritage cities face problems, including neglect and the negative impacts of a lack of maintenance and sometimes exposure to looting and theft.
To achieve the goals of sustainable development, the forum was discussing youth empowerment, job creation, water issues in the Arab world, and ways to address and solve these problems and enhance young people’s participation in the knowledge economy, he said. He explained that in a knowledge economy, intellectual capital is the basis of consumption and production and that it was a key component in the developed countries’ economic activities.
AFYE President Magdi Allam said that the forum’s activities had been launched in Aswan and closed in Luxor. It had seen the organisation of sessions on climate change, water, youth, and environment issues.
On the sidelines of the forum, the attendees visited heritage sites and tourist attractions in the enchanting cities of Luxor and Aswan, Allam added. He pointed out that the forum was being held under the umbrella of the Arab League in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Islamic Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (ISESCO), with the participation of the ministries of tourism and antiquities, environment, and irrigation and water resources, UNICEF, and the Small Grants Programme of the Global Environment Facility.
Some 250 young men and women from various Egyptian and Arab universities and institutes were taking part in the forum, which was meant to create a regional platform for reviewing and exchanging experiences among young people to achieve the goals of sustainable development, Allam added.
Throughout the forum, experts were holding panel discussions and round tables for young people, who were also visiting Luxor’s forests, some of the areas earmarked for the safe utilisation of treated sewage water.
Allam warned of the dangers of climate change on Egypt’s monuments, particularly those not made of granite. He gave the example of the Sphinx, a statue made of white limestone, and thus vulnerable to groundwater accumulation. He said that monuments in Minya, Bahnasa, San Al-Haggar, and Masoud Island were facing the same threats.
Abbas Mohamed Sharaki, a professor of geology and water at the Department of Natural Resources of the Faculty of Higher African Studies at Cairo University, said that climate change was a massive global threat, referring to the recent COP26 summit meeting held in Glasgow in the UK in the presence of 200 heads of state, including Egypt’s, to address its repercussions.
The world has witnessed many climatic changes over the ages due to natural causes, Sharaki said. It has experienced ice ages and warm periods (interglacials) on roughly 100,000-year cycles for at least the last one million years.
“The hot period started 11,000 years ago. The increasing heat today is due to man’s activities, the rise in population, industrial advances, the large number of power stations, and the increase in the use of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas. All this has led to an increase in the surface temperature of the Earth by one degree Celsius during the last century. Man’s activities have led to an increase in greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and methane, the partial melting of the Earth’s poles, and the consequent rise in sea levels, which have increased by about 20cm during the last century,” Sharaki said.
“The world’s water resources are being affected by rising temperatures, as rains, torrential rains, and floods increase or decrease in some areas, and evaporation increases. Heat and cold waves are affecting people, animals, plants, agricultural production, and heritage cities.”
Responses: Sally Mohamed Farid, an assistant professor of economics at the Faculty of Higher African Studies at Cairo University, said international responses to climate change had been contradictory.
The world’s 17 major economies release about 80 per cent of carbon emissions, while they claim that the developing countries will cause this percentage of emissions in the future.
She said that World Bank reports indicate that the Earth’s temperature may rise by four degrees Celsius by the end of the century, which will have devastating effects on agriculture, water resources, human health, and heritage cities, while the poor will be the most affected overall.
Climate change has had a direct effect on the tourism industry, a key source of income for many countries, especially in the Arab world, Farid said, stressing that the climate was a critical factor in attracting people to tourist destinations.
The rising temperatures will affect the ranking of these countries, resulting in their retreat or disappearance from travel lists by 2080, she said.
Farid warned that climate change will be particularly damaging to the economies of developing countries that depend on the agricultural and tourism sectors. The World Bank estimates that the developing countries will bear about 75 to 80 per cent of the costs of damage caused by climate change. An increase of two degrees Celsius above temperatures before the Industrial Revolution could lead to a decrease of four to five per cent in the GDP of Africa and South Asia and one per cent in the GDP of the developed countries, she added.
Climate change will negatively affect infrastructure, especially in countries where land use and urban-planning regulations forego basic requirements for adapting to climate change, Farid noted.
Ihab Abdel-Aziz, director of the Water and Environmental Sanitation Programme at UNICEF, said climate change was now receiving unprecedented global attention. Discussions over how to deal with climate change on the scientific, political, and economic fronts are occupying academic, research, and executive circles. The challenge of climate change has also been occupying artists, with several feature films discussing its implications.
The children and young people of tomorrow are the most threatened by climate change, which will negatively affect the ability to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Abdel-Aziz said, adding that there should be more awareness campaigns to come up with proposals to save the coming generations.
Alaa Al-Desouki, director of cultural programmes at the Ministry of Youth and Sports, said Egypt was giving priority to climate change. The country will host the UN COP27 Summit on the issue next year, and new and innovative ideas should be presented to curb the repercussions of climate change on heritage cities, he added.
The ministry was doing all it could to save heritage cities in Egypt, since tourism is one of the main elements of the economy. He called for presenting the ideas of the young people who had participated in the AFYE on a wider scale to help countries put in place mechanisms and policies to deal with the repercussions of climate change and their effects on heritage cities.
Jihan Al-Bayoumi, a member of the Education Committee of the House of Representatives, the lower house of Egypt’s parliament, said that the impact of climate change on heritage cities was a priority of the political leadership. She noted that the forum was being held days after flash floods in Aswan had resulted in the deaths of three people.
On 12 November, sandstorms and heavy rainfall hit Aswan and the neighbouring city of Kom Ombo, flushing scorpions and snakes from their usual habitats. The rainfall, which continued into the following day, also caused mudbrick houses to collapse. More than 500 people were injured.
The rains caused flooding in the streets and led to power and water cuts. Dusty winds compounded the problems by uprooting trees and toppling electricity pylons. The heavy rains in Aswan, one of the world’s driest cities, were a symptom of global climate change, and experts are predicting that unusual weather events will grow in number. Climate change is causing average temperatures to increase, snow cover to melt, and increased desertification and drought punctuated by torrential rain, she added.
Al-Bayoumi said that the Aswan floods were a serious warning that the repercussions of climate change on heritage sites should be thoroughly studied to reach immediate solutions.
She added that Aswan enjoys natural, historical, and human resources that qualify it to attract domestic and foreign tourism, especially excursions.
Osama Al-Nahhas, the ISESCO representative at the forum, warned in a recorded speech of the dangers to which heritage sites and cities are exposed, stressing that heritage is the cornerstone of human civilisation and that it is vital to preserve it.
ISESCO supports initiatives and studies on climate change, especially those related to heritage sites at risk of collapse, he added.
Mohamed Hammouda, the representative of the Arab League, called for the creation of a unified Arab vision to confront climate change, exchange experiences, benefit from Arab partnerships, enhance cooperation between Arab and regional organisations, and increase awareness to achieve sustainable development.
Magda Emari from Algeria said that “heritage cities and monuments are the legacy left to us by our predecessors, and we bear the responsibility of passing them on intact to future generations.” She added that “the forum plays an integral role in the protection of this legacy.
“Heritage-protection initiatives have been launched in the Arab and African countries, but it is important to benefit from the Egyptian experience in this regard,” Emari said, noting that many regional countries have ratified the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage since its introduction in the early 1970s.
Workshops: On the sidelines of the forum, the Holding Company for Drinking Water and Wastewater held a number of sessions, including plumbing workshops.
The sessions focused on teaching maintenance skills and the repair of sanitary equipment in order to stop water wastage and leaks.
The company held another workshop on the HCWW-125 mobile application, which earned it a prize for innovation and is a step towards digital transformation and the digitisation of services offered to citizens.
The workshop explained the advantages of the application, which allows notifications to be sent on planned and unplanned maintenance work and periods of water cuts to alert people about water needs. The application also receives complaints and allows photographs of the location of complaints or breakages to be sent, as well as information about the drinking water and sanitation sector.
The AFYE hosted a workshop on the electronic marketing of government services and ways of benefiting from digital technologies to provide quality services through pinpointing targeted groups and using social-media platforms to announce them.
The Holding Company for Drinking Water and Wastewater organised workshops on rationalising water consumption that enabled participants to express their ideas through creative and innovative graphics that convey messages about the importance of water and the need to conserve it.
Yehia Abdel-Moneim Abu Zeid, chairman and managing director of the Aswan Drinking Water and Sanitation Company, said that Aswan was an important historic city and climate change would damage its drinking water and sanitation sector. The company is well prepared to face the repercussions of flash floods and changes in the weather induced by climate change, however, he said.
Abu Zeid said that the company aimed to transform the ideas from workshops into actual plans on the ground, noting that it had organised a drawing competition under the title “Every Drop Counts”.
Amal Gamil, director of public relations for the Drinking Water and Sanitation Company in Assiut and the New Valley, said that the Company supported the Forum particularly because of its keenness to reach out to young people, providing workshops about rationalising water consumption to preserve the environment and reduce the effects of climate change.
Aya Mustafa, a student at the Faculty of Tourism at Sadat University, said she was keen to attend the forum because of the importance of the issues it discussed and because it was related to her field of study. Mustafa said she was preoccupied by finding solutions to climate change, given its many negative effects.
Arwa Sami, a student at the Faculty of Pharmacy at Sadat University, said that her attendance at the forum had been an award for promising students. She said it was a golden opportunity societally and scientifically to raise awareness of the need to preserve heritage cities and the environment and to reduce the negative effects of climate change.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 9 December, 2021 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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