Egypt

Nov. 2022

Essay  3 min United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27): Doubts and Hopes

Banlastic Egypt (Alexandria, Egypt) ©Banlastic Egypt

This November Egypt hosts COP27, the world’s most important climate change conference, and the fifth COP to be held in Africa. The conference will address the severe impacts of climate change facing the world. An essay by Egyptian environmental activist Manar Ramadan.

For over a decade, Egypt has already been suffering from the effects of climate change. Sea level rise threatens the Northern Coast of Egypt; the soil salinity of the Nile Delta, which is responsible for producing more than 33% of Egypt’s food security, is deteriorating. Adding to the political background with the Nile Basin countries, Egypt’s water quota is decreasing, which, in turn, affects agricultural activities. Flash rains, heat waves, and extreme weather adds more pressure to the overall status.

Hope in the People: Grassroots Initiatives

Working for a civil society organisation (CSO) that works with affected people on the ground, I witness how the effects of climate change are already happening all around us and how especially grassroots initiatives are fighting for solutions.

My organization for example worked with two groups of fishermen from two Northern cities in Egypt. They have confirmed that extreme weather worsened the increasing pollution level. This is noted in the decreased fish quality and the appearance of new species on the shores of the Mediterranean.

Fishermen and farmers constitute resilient communities that adapt to the climate change crisis without waiting for much individual support from the government. Ismailia, a city famous for being the top producer of mango in Egypt, is one example for that. In 2021, it was vigorously hit by heat waves, which led to a steep decline in the average annual yield. Due to this great loss, farmers self-organised and confided more in their traditional knowledge. They pruned the mango trees in a way that encourages elongation, leaving wider spaces between branches. Therefore, when heat waves hit the farms again, the trees now had an adaptation strategy: spaces to breathe. This is an excellent example of how self-organised communities propose solutions to their current challenges.

Great efforts vs. contradictions

The efforts came together between the green civil society and the government after launching the presidential initiative “Go Green”. The Ministry of Environment realised that working hand-in-hand with youth became the only way to achieve the global goals towards sustainable development and green economy. Partnerships with many youth projects have been initiated, and field work that engages the public sector was a beautiful fruit reaped from this cooperation by cleaning public beaches, the green transformation of districts besides other projects.

However, Egyptian civil society still remains disappointed in the face of counterproductive actions from the state in the cutting of trees in public gardens, expansion of pedestrian roads, and the privatisation of public beaches. All being the lungs of many major cities and the only window for the people to connect with nature. Another example of counterproductive measures taken by the government is the tree cutting in the Cairo district of Heliopolis that did not prove to be a sustainable solution, but rather the opposite. The government added more to the concrete forests by building many more bridges claiming the objective was to solve the traffic problem. The solution should not be in clearing green spaces to create larger roads for vehicles, but in investing money into real innovation of the infrastructure and public transportation, which is accessible and affordable for all. Undoubtedly, improving public transportation would improve the situation of the soaring traffic in Egyptian streets.

It is also fundamental that environmental advocacy can’t be separate from social and economic justice, especially in a state that has a high level of security alert for various political reasons. We cannot be certain of our security as environmental activists posing radical questions. How can we host COP27, when we on the one hand hold polluting countries accountable and demanding climate justice, while on the other hand clear trees from public spaces so they can be replaced by commercial projects? The contradictory nature of the conference casts doubts on the event’s transparency in addressing real, crucial environmental issues the youth wants to bring on to the table for discussion. Will we as activists be forcefully influenced towards a more biased opinion that does not address reality and contradictions? This is a question that remains unanswered.
 

What we hope for as Egyptian civil organizations

Since March 2022, various organisations brought together the Egyptian civil society. We shared knowledge regarding climate financing and the mega projects that Egypt is implementing to adapt to climate change. Later, in July, together with the public policy hub in the American University of Cairo, we developed a number of requests for the COP27 presidency.

The top two requests that came into discussion are:

Assuring climate justice on the individual level.

A portion of the green funds paid by polluting countries should not only be spent on mega-infrastructure (as adaptation to sea level rise, for example) but should be allocated as  “loss and damage funds” provided to individuals who lost their homes as a result of floods and flash rains. The funds could also support small farmers who lose their agricultural yields as a result of heat waves, extreme weather, and water scarcity. Many of the affected vulnerable communities live in remote areas with challenging socioeconomic conditions and act as barriers that stay resilient in the face of adverse climate change effects. Some examples of such communities include the tribes living along the Red Sea governorate, farmers of small Nile villages, and island dwellers in Aswan, South Egypt. This fund should be complemented by technology transfer to advance the irrigation systems in vulnerable areas to preserve water, besides more transparency and accountability on how the green funds budget is spent.

Sharing grassroots adaptation case studies.

As we started this essay by giving examples on how local farmers have taken steps to adapt to heat waves, we now need these stories to be exchanged with other youth activists in Africa. Exchange of knowledge between African civil society organisations needs to happen so no one would have to start the ladder from its beginning.

To wrap up this discussion, COP27 is significant, for not only Egypt, but the continent. I am hopeful to see the CSO’s agenda being voiced in the blue zone where all negotiations happen. We request focusing more on adaptation strategies, ending the mass destruction of trees on public roads and pedestrian streets, allocating more budget towards the rescue of vulnerable communities under the title of “loss and damage”, and finally, sharing our experience of adaptation efforts with the rest of the African civil society. Transparency and accountability are also a clear requirement.

We are hopeful that those requests will be taken into account in the official discussions in the coming 12 days of the COP.