Egypt launches National Strategy for Climate Change 2050

CAIRO – 20 May 2022: Egypt launched the National Strategy for Climate Change 2050 to improve the citizens’ quality of life and sustainable economic growth and preserve its natural resources.

“Climate change is one of the most important issues facing people as its impacts pose threats to sustainable development plans, food security and water availability, and thus will affect the national security,” said Egyptian Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouli in his speech at launching the national strategy for climate change 2050, on Thursday.

Although Egypt’s share of global CO2 emissions does not exceed 0.6%, Egypt is one of the countries most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change on many sectors, such as: coasts, agriculture, and water resources. health, population, and infrastructure, the Prime Minister said, adding that these impacts would lead to adding a new challenge to the set of challenges facing Egypt.

The Prime Minister announced that the national strategy for adapting to the climate change impacts has been prepared to lay down a general framework to identify problems in all affected sectors, and then to enhance how the society can cope with risks and their impact on various sectors.

He added that a national adaptation plan is being prepared to facilitate the integration of adaptation measures in a coherent manner into existing and new policies, programs and activities.

The Prime Minister also said that an interactive map is being prepared to help the decision-makers pinpoint the most vulnerable areas to climate change impacts.

He continued that the COVID-19 and other ongoing global crises, besides climate change impacts stand defiant against Egypt’s economic growth, but the state took certain measures such as issuing the green bonds with $750 million to achieve the green economy goals.

$324 billion is needed to achieve the strategy’s goals

In her opening speech at the conference, Egyptian Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad said that vision of the strategy comes out from the Sustainable Development Strategy 2030.

The Minister also clarified that the government has allocated a financial package to set a number of projects such as energy, transportation, agriculture, water, irrigation and carbon reduction in the petroleum sector at a cost of about $211 billion for mitigation and $113 billion for adaptation to programs until 2050.

“The strategy enables Egypt to plan and manage climate change issues at various levels in a way that supports the achievement of the country's desired economic and development goals via adopting ways to reduce CO2 emissions,” said Fouad, adding that the strategy came in accordance with the state’s constitutional articles that stipulate the citizen’s right to enjoy a clean environment, Egypt’s strategy for sustainable development 2030, sectoral strategies and an analysis of strengths and weaknesses.

The five-point strategy tackles achieving sustainable economic growth by reducing CO2 emissions; adapting to climate changes with the country's ability to address this issue; governance framework of the state and society; improving the financial infrastructure; and improving scientific research and technology management, the Minister said.

She added that the sub-objectives of the strategy, which aims to provide new and renewable energy projects, work on reducing emissions, maximizing energy efficiency, and adopting sustainable consumption and production mechanism.

Talking about the fourth goal of the strategy for improving infrastructure through bank financing of climate change projects, Fouad said the Ministry of Finance issued green bonds and the Prime Minister approved a green economic incentive package for a number of projects, namely energy, transport, hydrogen, waste and plastic alternatives.

UN: A solid-basis strategy

UN Resident Coordinator Elena Panova said during a penal session, praising Egypt’s efforts in this field and congratulated Madbouli for launching the strategy, saying “Egypt’s National Strategy for Climate change is a solid basis for sustainable development.”

“The UN is a catalyst and partner that work on leverage of expertise and identifying the financial resources to go forward combating climate change,” she added.

She added that launching the strategy is a timely step and encouraging as it tackles the management of the sustainable development and coincides with the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework that helps shape the cooperation throughout its six agencies.

Green projects

“By this June, 30 percent of the state’s projects would be green and the percentage would be 40% by the next year,” said Egyptian Minister of Planning Hala El Saied, adding that the National Strategy for Climate Change was prepared on the environmental, economical and social dimensions

“For the first time, we launched a strategy with putting into consideration the standards of the environmental aspects when it comes to

In his speech at the penal session, the Egyptian Minister of Agriculture said that the agriculture sector is working on reducing CO2 emissions, and is also one of the most threatened sectors by climate change, saying “high temperature would increase the water consumption in the agriculture.”

The Minister said that the ministry is working on a number of projects in the agriculture field, top of which is getting new strains of rice that are resistant to water scarcity.

“We had to re-draw the map of the agriculture crops, besides we work on an early warning system,” he said.