Each global warming scenario seems more nightmarish than the last. But the one thing Egypt cannot afford to do, writes Abdel-Moneim Said, is to bury its head in the sand As if Egypt needed any more problems, let alone a problem of the magnitude of global warming. We already have to deal with the consequences of a population explosion and the strains it is placing on economic and social development. We already live in a region that has more than its fair share of political tensions and military conflicts. But there is no getting around the fact that global warming is happening. We're stuck with it and must deal with its consequences. So as to make everything crystal clear, let's look at the subject from the beginning. Until the 20th century the sun was the primary source of heat for our planet. Without it the earth would have been a cold and barren lump of rock. However, starting from 19th century the situation changed. Man became the sun's partner in heating the globe. This "partnership" had its roots in the industrial revolution, which began in a tiny country -- Britain -- but then quickly spread to the rest of the inhabited world. Britain's revolution evolved into hundreds of similar revolutions, consuming endless quantities of energy. But there's a big difference between solar and manmade heating. The former strikes a delicate balance. It gives sufficient warmth to support life but it never exceeds that point. Indeed, it has a way of diffusing any excess in order to regulate the earth's temperature. Manmade heating is an entirely different beast. It is very dirty. It produces huge quantities of smoke and toxic chemicals, pollutants that infest the stratosphere creating a heat trap, a process now known as the greenhouse effect. When the sun was the sole source of heat all regions of the earth had a part to play in maintaining an ecological balance. The heat at the equator generated the evaporation cycle that provided the moisture that gave rise to the vast rain forests that supply the earth with the oxygen it needs. Meanwhile, the cold at the North and South Poles helped maintain the temperature balance. When man entered the industrial age and ushered in the greenhouse effect he upset this balance. We have reached a situation in which scientists foresee the melting of the polar ice caps, raising sea levels to the extent that low lying coastal regions will be flooded, generating massive movements of population. But is everything ecologists claim is happening really taking place or is it, as some scientists suggest, really one of the great cycles of nature such as that which caused the Ice Age? Could it be that nature is too powerful for man to meddle with? A speaker at a conference I once attended claimed that Egypt offered the most solid proof of the vacillating cycles of nature, claiming that it was the swing from a rainy era to one of drought that precipitated the end of Pharaonic civilisation. But whether the problem is the result of the manmade greenhouse effect or an inexorable shift in nature dictated by the relationship between the earth and the sun does nothing to change the fact that our planet is in the midst of a major climatic change. The effects of this change will be so profound mankind must start preparing for them now. This was undoubtedly the thinking that led to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, which brought together 192 UN member nations with the purpose of reaching binding agreements aimed at halting the attrition on the environment by 2012. The UN held its first conference on climate change in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Attended by more than 172 nations, the Earth Summit came in response to a UN Climate Committee report, issued in 1990, outlining the grave threat to our planet brought about by human activity, particularly the consumption of coal, oil and natural gas. The summit produced the first international agreement to reduce gas emissions. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed by more than 150 countries and entered into effect in 1994 after being ratified by 50 governments, which made it legally binding. Yet it soon became apparent that the agreement was ineffective. In 1997 it was broadened to include the Kyoto Protocol, which set the first binding targets for industrialised nations to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Copenhagen agenda has several aims: to set new targets for reducing GHG emissions, to lower the earth's temperature by an average of two degrees centigrade, to set binding mechanisms for industrialised nations through an alternative agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, and to search for ways in which industrialised nations can help developing nations finance their own efforts to confront climate change. According to a preliminary estimate, the world needs $600 billion to meet the challenges of climate change over the next two decades. Egypt is among the 20 countries ranked most vulnerable to global warming. Among the scenarios predicted by climatologists is that global warming will hasten the evaporation of the Nile, leading to severe water shortages. According to a report by the Council of Ministers Information Centre, the anticipated rise in Egypt's average temperature by an average of 1.5 degrees centigrade by 2050 and 2.4 degrees by 2100 will severely reduce the productivity of agricultural land. More alarming still is the prediction that 30 per cent of the Nile Delta will be vulnerable to flooding. The densely populated Delta is home to two-thirds of Egypt's inhabitants. Also facing submersion are the industrial zones and commercial projects which have been constructed along 240km of Egypt's Mediterranean coat, with a hinterland 160km deep facing flooding from the sea. Many experts also warn of the threat to Egyptian antiquities. The rising sea level would engulf a third of Egypt's coastal heritage sites. In Alexandria the Citadel of Qait Bey, Al-Chatby necropolis, the Roman amphitheatre, Anfoushi Square and the catacombs of Kom Al-Shoqafa could vanish. Further to the east, water will cover large parts of Rosetta, submerging many of the port city's historical buildings. Tel Al-Firma, one of the most important historical sites in northern Sinai, could meet the same fate, along with Al-Tina plain and ancient Biluzium, which contains a vast array of archaeological sites including Tel Al-Kanayes, Tel Al-Makhzan, Tel Al-Muslim, Tel Al-Louli, Tel Al-Mafraq, Tel Abu Seifa and Tel Abu Wasifa. The Council of Information and Decision Support Centre report further concludes a 50cm increase in sea levels by 2050 would displace 1.5 million Egyptians in Alexandria alone. A UN Economic Cooperation and Development Organisation report estimates that global warming could lead to 3.5 million environmental refugees in Egypt. Other studies make grimmer predictions: from five to six million people displaced from areas vulnerable to flooding. On top of this, medical experts warn of the health risks of global warming, citing increased incidence of sun and heat stroke, malaria, pulmonary diseases, heart and vascular diseases and skin cancer. It is a nightmarish set of scenarios. Fortunately, the search is on to find ways to deal with threats that are all too real. There have been calls to invest some LE320 billion in agriculture by 2030 and to increase spending on research into crops capable of withstanding higher levels of heat and salinity. Reservations have been raised over constructing any new factories in low-lying parts of the Delta, and some have even suggested the ambitious project of constructing an artificial coastline for parts of the Delta, pumping sand from the sea bed to the shore to create a barrier well above sea level while simultaneously constructing a subterranean curtain to prevent the seepage of sea water into the Delta. Obviously, such a solution would be astronomically expensive. Is it foolish to suggest we begin setting the money aside, starting from now?
