National dialogue on climate change launched in Alexandria

CAIRO - 2 May 2022: The Alexandria office of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency launched on Sunday the first sessions of the national dialogue on climate change, said the Ministry of Environment in a statement.

The sessions aim at raising public awareness about climate change impacts on people's lives and their environment, besides brainstorming ideas to help mitigate these impacts, the statement added. The sessions discussed innovative ideas and technologies that help rationalize water and energy consumption.

On March 27, 2022, Egyptian Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad launched the first national dialogue on climate change from Sharm El -Sheikh, where the conference would convene in November.

Egypt raised awareness of addressing climate change impacts in daily life activities by rationalizing the citizens' consumption of water, energy and resources, according to the minister.

The minister of environment reviewed Egypt's efforts and projects aimed at addressing climate change such as seawater desalination and wastewater reuse, in addition to projects of protecting the Nile Delta, and using renewable energy. She added that Egypt is working on countering the effects of climate change, despite the fact that Egypt's emissions of greenhouse gases do not exceed 1% globally.

The infrastructure of Sharm El-Sheikh has been designed to make it a green city, adopting policies to reduce emissions. The city received 300 electric buses in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment, and built a garage in cooperation with the Ministry of Transport on an area of 100,000 square meters containing chargers for electric cars. The city is working on converting a total of 800 taxis to work with natural gas.

In addition, a total of 150 microbuses were replaced to operate with new gas or electricity. The governorate cooperated with the Ministries of Tourism and Environment to transform the city’s hotels into green ones with a set of controls, including the use of solar energy and increasing green spaces.