Reporting on the first ever Greenpeace campaign in Egypt, Sara Abou Bakr Last month the Cairo Greenpeace tent, set up at the Manesterly Palace on Al-Roda Island, saw students clustring in their hundreds to watch videos about the global environmental hazards of fossil fuels. Accommodating groups of up to 200 was "tough work", according to Lama Abdul- Samad, a Lebanese action coordinator at Greenpeace Mediterranean, but "definitely worth it". The occasion was Greenpeace Mediterranean's clean energy campaign, of which Egypt became part six months ago. Wael Hmaidan, who headed the assessment team which decided to include Egypt, believes the country could play a "critical role" in the light of the local volunteers' enthusiasm. Aimed at spreading awareness of clean and renewable energy to replace fossil fuels, the campaign made use of a river-faring ship, the Anna, which set off on the Danube and was meant to come to rest on the Nile; in the end the red tape proved so huge that it didn't. For Greenpeace could not afford the LE2 million collateral demanded by the authorities, Hmaidan explains: "In none of the countries the Anna visited did we encounter any such trouble -- this is the only place where we weren't allowed in." More generally, they suffered the challenge of "starting from scratch". In most countries Greenpeace is a well known name, one campaigner explained. Even in Croatia, where the organisation had had no activity, the media "went wild" as the ship arrived. "Here people had never heard of us, so we had to introduce the organisation." Yet despite the limited media attention, young people have found an appeal in Greenpeace as a platform for objecting, and local environmental organisations were eagre to network. Rather than the planned Nile cruise, the highlight of the organisation's stay was the press conference that took place at the end of the Manesterly exhibit, at which Michael Geyer, the executive secretary of SolarPACES, together with Sven Teske, the renewables director of Greenpeace International, celebrated a new environmental report entitled Concentrated Solar Thermal Power-NOW!, sponsored by the two companies in collaboration with the European Solar Thermal Industry Association (ESTIA). Both stressed the greenhouse effect as an instance of global warming. In Egypt, the sun can produce the equivalent of one to two barrels of oil per square metre, Teske pointed out, while Geyer recalled that solar energy was used in Maadi as early as 1912, with parabolic trough collectors used for water pumping: "And now we're back again." For his part Hmaidan later explained that, at the present rate, global warming could result in the loss of 75 per cent of the Nile in 100 years' time -- "that's why Egypt should become one of the main campaigners". The shift to solar energy is easier planned than implemented, however, due to, among other factors, political and social considerations. "We realise that the change must be gradual," says Paul Horsman, International Climate Change campaigner, "but we need to start now if we are to be reaping results in 50 years." The initial investment costs notwithstanding, Greenpeace International is encouraging Egypt to start setting up plants which, as Teske pointed out, can be quite beneficial to the economy, making use of the local labour force at every level of production and boosting the market as a whole; profits cannot be expected before 10-15 years, he added, which is why government cooperation is essential. Currently, with help from the New Renewable Energy Agency (NREA), the Solar Island and the Combined Cycle Island, environmentalists are developing two projects in Egypt, both of which are to be launched by 2008, red tape permitting. But aside from discontent over the Anna being obstructed, the experience heralds, in the words of Hmaidan, "a beginning, some kind of a first step": hopefully, as he predicts, "many will follow".
