CAIRO – 17 January 2022: Egypt has been shouting out on climate change in international conferences, calling on concerted efforts to control the negative impact of the changes.
Egypt has thus far implemented 30 national projects to address climate changes, adapt to and reduce its effects, in cooperation between all ministries. It issued a list of criteria of environmental sustainability for all future projects, meaning 50 percent of the new projects should be green by the year 2024, while hit 100 percent by the year 2030.
- Sustainable energy sector:
There are a number of giant projects implemented by the New and Renewable Energy Authority at the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy to reduce emissions
1- Converting Street light posts into LED:
The project aims to improving energy efficiency and convert street lighting into LED energy-saving lighting systems.
2- The Zayt Bay project to generate electricity from wind energy:
The project generate electricity with a total capacity of 220 megawatts. The station is located in the Zayt Bay area along the Red Sea coast, about 350 km southeast of Cairo. The station contains 110 turbines, and the capacity of one turbine is 2 megawatts, bringing the total Production to 220 megawatts, to be added by the Egyptian government to the total production capacity in Egypt.
3- The new High Dam project:
The project is about establishing a solar energy complex in Benban near Aswan, to increase the share of renewable energy sources to become 20 percent of the electric energy produced by 2022, and 42 percent by 2035.
4- The Egypt PV project:
It is a project to develop small-scale decentralized photovoltaic systems connected to the grid, implemented by the United Nations Development Program in partnership with the Industry Modernization Center (IMC), at the Ministry of Trade and Industry and funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a project that focuses on the development of photovoltaic systems Small-scale decentralized and connected to the grid, they can now be seen in cities on rooftops of schools, supermarkets, parking lots, hotels and government buildings, and the project was awarded the British Energy Institute's Low Carbon Award 2020.
5- Solar-powered surface water pumping stations for irrigation in the governorates:
It was carried out by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in cooperation with the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, to contribute to pumping Solar irrigation water, which significantly reduces water losses caused by evaporation in canals, and provides a more sustainable source of energy for irrigation, to reduce the negative impact on the environment, soil pollution from diesel leakage, greenhouse gas emissions, and enhance the use of solar energy in raising water.
6- The first pilot project to convert waste into electricity in Fayoum:
The project is implemented by the Ministry of Environment, in cooperation with the Environment Center for the Arab Region and Europe (CEDARE), and with funding from the European Union and Italian Cooperation.
It is implemented with a capacity of 2.5 tons per day of municipal and agricultural waste that generates 875 gigawatt hours/year. A total of 1800 household and agricultural units were implemented in 18 governorates, in addition to biogas projects that provided the use of 63,000 biogas cylinders per year, and the launch of the national program to spread the use of biogas systems in rural Egypt.
- Sustainable transport sector
7- High Quality bus system:
The Ministry of Housing and the Ministry of Environment, in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program and the Global Environment Facility, have worked to introduce a high-quality bus system, with the aim of persuading car owners to use public transportation for their daily commute, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
8- Extension of Metro line 3:
Construction work is currently underway on the extension of the metro line 3, and work has begun on the implementation of line 4, as the metro network in Cairo is used by millions of people daily.
- Industry sector
9- In 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Trade launched a new presidential initiative to replace old cars for individuals with new cars that run on natural gas, targeting 250 thousand cars to be replaced within three years.
10- The national project for converting cars to natural gas:
The project aims to reduce emissions of air and climate pollutants from vital sectors and combat air pollution in Greater Cairo, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. The country also operates the first electric buses in public transport in Alexandria, with funding from the World Bank. The Cairo Public Transport Authority also gets 100 electric buses, and the first bike-sharing system was implemented in Fayoum Governorate to motivate citizens, especially young people to contribute to reducing emissions, and the experience will be repeated in downtown Cairo.
11- Air Pollution and Climate Change Management in Greater Cairo project:
The project is implemented at a cost of $200 million, to modernize the Egyptian air quality monitoring system, and to strengthen the population’s ability in the Greater Cairo region to cope with high pollution, including accidents that arise or exacerbate as a result of emissions. and extreme weather phenomena.
12- Improving solid waste management in Greater Cairo:
The project includes plans to establish an integrated landfill for waste management in the Tenth of Ramadan City, closing and rehabilitating landfills in Abu Zaabal, and strengthening the regulatory framework for waste management;
13- Using the electric bus system in Egypt’s public sector:
The project aims to contribute to reducing vehicle emissions. The system includes electricity charging stations, evaluating the technical and financial feasibility to expand the scope of application of this system, and supporting activities aimed at changing behaviors community and service provider behaviors and ensuring citizen participation in project design and implementation.
14- The largest industrial pollution control project:
The project was launched by the Ministry of Environment in cooperation with some international donors at the Middle East level in the field of industrial pollution control and the use of cleaner production technology in the Egyptian industry through energy-saving, alternative fuels, and reuse of waste heat and recyclable waste.
15- The Environmental Pollution Abatement Project (EPAP):
The project provides a financing mechanism for implementing efficient resource management technologies and systems, including energy-saving boilers, energy-saving coolers, alternative fuels, and reusing waste heat and recyclable waste.
- Water sector
16- The national project for lining canals:
This giant national project aims to reduce water losses and provide water security as part of the effects associated with climate change, with the aim of reducing a total of 15 to 19 billion cubic meters of water that is wasted in the water network, along the course of the Nile, whether from The Nile River or from rain, groundwater or treated water.
It further helps to raise the efficiency of irrigation in the fields from 50 percent to 75 percent of the immersion irrigation in the fields, and it works to increase its productivity by no less than 250 thousand acres of muddy lands, and reduce waste and dumping waste.
17- The sea water desalination project:
The project also includes the establishment of the largest desalination plants, within the border governorates and coastal cities, and not to transfer the Nile River water to these governorates again, to stop wasting water.
18- Another national project targets the protection from torrents rains, collecting rainwater and transforming the destructive torrent water into an unconventional source of fresh water for local communities
19- The world’s wastewater treatment project at Bahr al-Baqar Bank:
It comes within the national projects that aims to confront water challenges, by finding alternative water sources, to reduce the gap between the available limited water resources and the growing consumption of the element of life and development (water).
It aims to treat salinity water and agricultural drainage, prevent seawater from interfering with groundwater, and improve the environment in the eastern delta. The project was registered in the Guinness Book of World Records, as the largest wastewater treatment plant in the world.
- Agriculture sector
20- The greenhouse project to achieve food security and self-sufficiency:
This project designs and implements the greenhouse project in cooperation with a number of other national and international companies to plant five thousand greenhouses on an area of 20 thousand acres, with an area of more than 95 percent of these greenhouses.
21- Developing new crops tolerant of temperature and salinity is another project, which includes an interactive map of climate change risks being implemented, with the plan also including mitigating emissions.
- Fish Farming
22- Establishing a large mariculture system in the coastal governorates:
The project aims to compensate for the decrease in returns from the open sea due to climate change. It includes aquaculture in Galion pond in the Kafr El Sheikh complex, which includes fish hatcheries, 454 fish ponds, 655 shrimp ponds, and 156 nursery ponds. The complex covers an area of 4,000 acres, and includes a feed mill and a fish packaging worker, and provides 5,000 job opportunities.
23- Transition to protected agriculture and modern irrigation systems:
It comes within the project of Building the Resilience of Food Security Systems Program, which benefits the southern Egypt region, in cooperation with the German Aid Agency.
- Adaptation projects
24- Adaptation project in the Nile Delta to climate changes and sea level rise:
This projects composed of integrated projects for Coastal Zones, where the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation pumps huge investments through the Coastal Protection Authority, in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program, with funding from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) in support of lowland protection systems in the Nile Delta. The project follows an ecosystem-based approach, including a project to enhance adaptation to climate changes in the North Coast and Nile Delta, with a value of $31.3 million, in cooperation with the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, and the construction of dams.
25- Use earthen bridge systems with reed fences installed at the top of the bridges to trap windborne sand.
26- Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Program:
The program includes an initiative to convert municipal waste to produce solid derived fuels (RDF) and organic fertilizers
27- The state also implemented a project to evaluate and develop a strategy to address the effects of sea level rise on human movement in Egypt.
28- Empower rural women in Upper Egypt:
The World Food Program provided rural women in Upper Egypt with an opportunity to develop economically and provide a source of income through the activities of simple manufacturing of food products and in-kind loans to adopt improved breeds of ducks and goats, which are more tolerant of high temperatures, to work on increasing the resilience of communities to climate changes
29- Another project is about establishing the National Solid Waste Authority, activating the waste law, and establishing waste recycling factories in the four governorates of Minya, Canal, Kafr El Sheikh and Gharbia Governorate
30- A project to study adaptation to climatic changes in urban areas, especially slums, in cooperation with the German aid agency GIZ.
Mon, Jan. 17, 2022
