New bill brought before Parliament to achieve net-zero emissions by 2025

CAIRO – 24 November 2022: A new bill was brought before the Egyptian House of Representatives (the Lower House of the Parliament) to force the state’s institutions to take all necessary measures for adaptation to and mitigations of climate change impacts to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The draft law was submitted by lawmaker Amira Saber, a member of Coordination's Committee of Party's Youth Leaders and Politicians [CPYP], Youm7 reported.

The new bill aims to address the legislative flaws in the old environmental legislation (Environmental Law 1994), which is inconvenient with the recent impacts of climate change.

On May 19, 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.

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, especially its coasts, agriculture, water resources, health, and infrastructure, Egyptian Prime Minister Moustafa Mabdouli said during the launch of the strategy.

He added that these impacts would lead to adding a new challenge to the set of challenges facing Egypt.

The first goal of the strategy is to achieve economic growth by reducing greenhouse emissions in various sectors; this objective would be carried out in the energy sector by increasing the share of all renewable and alternative energy sources. Additionally, this goal can be attained through reducing emissions from fossil fuels, optimizing the use of energy, and adopting sustainable consumption and non-energy activities.