COP26.. Minister of Environment launches the Egypt National Climate Change Strategy -2050

In a side event within Egypt’s participation in conference of Parties on climate Change (COP26) in Glasgow, Dr. Yasmine Fouad, Minister of Environment, launched Egypt National Climate Change Strategy -2050. This event witnessed the participation of Mrs. Ayat Soliman, Regional director of the World Bank Group’s Sustainable Development Department for the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) and Mrs. Elena Panova, the Resident coordinator of UNDP in Egypt.
Dr. Yasmine Fouad confirmed that Climate change issue has witnessed a rising attention since 2019 and turned to be at a ministerial level as the National council of climate change is held under the presidency of the prime minister and membership of the concerned ministries headed by ministry of environment.
Dr. Yasmine Fouad pointed out that ministry of environment has prepared for different meetings to integrate climate change dimension in other sectors, including planning, finance and international cooperation as being cross-cutting ministries other than the conventional sectoral ministries that are affected by and have an effect on climate change. Moreover, ministry of Environment prepared Egypt National Climate Change Strategy -2050 on two phases: the framework phase approved on last June and preparation of the entire strategy phase.
From her side, Mrs. Ayat Soliman, Regional director of the World Bank Group’s Sustainable Development Department for the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), commended the Egyptian strategy which is regarded as being an integrated and comprehensive strategy focusing on the social and economic aspects, governmental action, financing and scientific research through the earnest leadership of ministry of environment for this issue. Also, she assured that World Bank is currently in the process of supporting Egypt in strategy priorities’ studies and this is what ministry of environment is doing now in cooperation with ministries of planning and Finance.

Furthermore, Mrs. Elena Panova, resident coordinator of UNDP in Egypt, asserted that the strategy was prepared in a record time and that the dialogue made with United Nations’ organizations included all supporting ideas as all international organizations will finance the strategy, emphasizing that the United Nations will support the implementation of the strategy based on different specializations for its organizations.

Minister of Environment- Dr. Yasmine Fouad confirmed that Egypt National Climate Change Strategy -2050 will enable Egypt to plan and manage climate change on different levels, in addition to supporting the sustainable development goals and Egypt’s vision 2030 targets by following a resilient and low-emission approach through effectively addressing the impacts and consequences of climate change. In this context, this would contribute in improving life quality for the Egyptian citizen and achieving the sustainable economic growth as well as preserving natural resources and ecosystems, in addition to enhancing Egypt’s leadership on the international level in the field of climate change.

The strategy aims to achieve five main objectives:
1. Achieving sustainable economic growth through:
• Low- emission development in various sectors by increasing the share of all renewable and alternative energy sources in the energy mix and expanding it by constructing wind farms and solar energy stations, producing energy from waste, expanding in use of bio-energy , in addition to developing new techniques to afford the use of renewable energy sources such as Smart control systems and exploring new alternative energy sources such as the green Hydrogen and nuclear energy. Besides, the increase of renewable energy

use in generating electricity inside the industrial establishments and applications of thermal solar energy in the industrial processes , as well as the gradual disposal of Charcoal and switching to low-carbon fuels.
• Maximizing energy efficiency by improving thermal energy terminals’ efficiency, transmission and distribution networks, activities related to oil and gas, improving energy efficiency for electrical appliances and equipments. Besides, Consumers’ turn to use techniques depending on cleaner energy sources such as means of transportation run by electricity and natural gas, public mass transit and bikes’ systems, in addition to improving energy efficiency in buildings, executing the national code for green buildings of new buildings and promoting energy efficiency for industrial processes in all industries.
• Adopting sustainable consumption and production trends for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from other non-energy activities through minimizing the use of green house gases emissions from agricultural activities, including rice cultivation and animal production by using new techniques and different nutrition systems, promoting for concept of RS4 , which is the reduction, reuse and restoration of municipal and agricultural waste, the safe disposal of solid waste in appropriate landfills and collecting the gases resulted from these landfills.

2. Enhancing Adaptive Capacity and Resilience to Climate Change, and
Alleviating the associated negative impacts by:
• Protecting citizens from the negative health impacts of climate change by improving health services, increasing the readiness of the health sector to address the diseases arose from climate change, conducting studies, training the employees in the health sector and raising the citizens’ awareness.
• Preserving natural resources and ecological systems from the effects of climate change by developing its capacity on adaptation, promoting to adopt an approach relying on the connection between efforts exerted for combating biodiversity loss, climate change, land degradation and conserving protectorates
• Preserving country’s resources and its assets from climate change impacts by developing unconventional marine resources, preserving agricultural lands, improving crops’ management systems, protecting fisheries, preserving the historical and cultural inheritance from the negative impacts of climate change, selecting new development communities’ sites away from the most vulnerable hotspots to climate change.
• resilient infrastructure and services to combat climate change through the integrated management of coastal zones, implementing protection from floods’ systems, collecting rain water, improving water and sanitation services and systems, using more efficient irrigation systems, improving roads to be more resilient in addressing climate change impacts, including high temperatures, torrents and sea level rise.
• Implementing concepts of minimizing disasters’ risks by establishing early warning systems, presenting recommendations for farmers to take specific actions such as measures for irrigation, preventive pests and diseases spray and establishing regular monitoring systems.

3. Enhancing Climate change action Governance:
Identifying roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders for the sake of achieving the strategic goals, improving Egypt’s rank in the international ranking related to climate change procedures to attract more investments, climate finance opportunities, reforming the necessary sectoral policies to accommodate the interventions required for mitigating climate change impacts and adapting with them, enhancing the legal, procedural and institutional arrangements, including monitoring, reporting and verification system (MRV)

4. Improving infrastructure for financing climate activities:
For achieving this objective, we have to promote for domestic green banking, green lines of credit, promoting for innovative finance mechanisms that give priority to adaptation measures for green bonds, participating the private sector in financing climate activities and promoting for green jobs, complying with guidelines of multilateral development banks (MDB) to finance the climate activities and building on the success achieved in current climate activities finance programs.

5. Enhancing scientific research, technology transfer, knowledge and awareness management for combating climate change, increasing awareness on climate change among different stakeholders (policymakers/ decrees, citizens and students)

Minister of Environment indicated that the Egyptian government adopts several public trends that support achieving the Egypt National Climate Change Strategy -2050, including the integrated planning among different national and sectoral strategies (such as sustainable development strategy 2030, green economy strategy, the National strategy for reducing disasters’ risks, low-emission development strategy (LEDS( and sectors’ strategies). Besides, integrating the measures related to climate change, sustainability standards, green recovery in national planning and budget preparation, integrating adaptation with climate and resilience in infrastructure projects, utilizing the available finance opportunities under the umbrella of United Nations framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) related to climate change and Paris Agreement as well as other sources relevant to climate. In addition, utilizing the current infrastructure as making use of expanded and updated current electricity network to operate the electrical vehicles, enhancing market competitiveness, economic diversity and creating green job opportunities.

Minister of environment clarified that the country will use set of policies and tools in implementing Egypt National Climate Change Strategy -2050 including:
• Innovative finance tools such as green bonds.
• conventional finance tools such as soft loans and grants from multilateral development banks
• preparing and presenting projects within the framework of the Green Climate Fund, new sustainable development mechanism for Paris Agreement.
• Building national system for monitoring, reporting and verification helps in following up and planning the climate action.
• Ministries’ appliance of sustainability standards in defining projects that will be presented to Ministry of Planning, economic development and Ministry of Finance.
• Involving stakeholders in various strategy development stages.
• Use of interactive map as a planning tool to identify the probable vulnerable areas to climate change.
• Defining and using digital solutions that enhance/ enable the implementation of low-emission and resilient solutions with climate change.
• Establishing units for sustainable development and climate change in each ministry.
• Integrating the issues related to climate change in environmental impact assessment studies (EIA) in Egypt.