CAIRO: Less than a week before flying over to Copenhagen to attend a global editors' forum on confronting global warming, the UN's Inter-Regional Information Network (IRIN) published a chilling report about the impending catastrophe threatening Egypt's Delta region as a result of climate change. The forum, titled "From Kyoto to Copenhagen: Confronting Global Warming and Achieving Energy Security (co-sponsored by the Government of Denmark and Project Syndicate, a non-profit institution providing quality commentaries to its global members) was a prelude to the COP15 United Nations Climate Change conference to be held in Copenhagen next December. COP15 is slated to be the last stop for a new global treaty to preserve the world's environment before the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The forum brought together experts and climatologists from all over the world with heavy representation from the most vulnerable countries, such as Bangladesh. But surprise, surprise there was no one there from Egypt, or the Middle East region for that matter. It made me wonder whether our Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs will even be there in Copenhagen and if yes, then what will Egypt's contribution be to this fateful issue. Which leads us back to the IRIN report to highlight the extent of what's at stake here. According to the report, Egypt is facing the dual threat of water needs surpassing resources by 2017, and rising sea levels in the decades ahead inundating much of the fertile Delta region, home to 60 percent of Egypt's 78 million people that is, 46.8 million Egyptians. Yes, 46.8 million human beings. The report quotes Minister of State for the Environment Maged George as saying that "many of the towns and urban areas in the north of the Delta will suffer from the rise in the level of the Mediterranean with effect from 2020, and about 15 percent of Delta land is [currently] under threat from the rising sea level and the seepage [of salt water] into ground water. A one-meter sea level rise predicted to take place within the next century would submerge Alexandria, researchers say. The former Minister of Water and Irrigation had also said that Egypt has already entered into the cycle of water poverty which has already affected agricultural output, exacerbating a growing hunger cycle. During one forum session dealing with "conveying complex ideas to the public I commented that in Egypt, despite the awareness of the impact of climate change on the very highest levels of government, the issue is nowhere to be seen in the arena of public discussion and is clearly not on the government's list of priorities when it comes to public service announcements or massive awareness campaigns. It made me wonder what exactly is our environmental policy and the nature of our input on the climate change issue on the global level. A simple Google search yielded very impressive results: The Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency website (eeaa.gov.eg) includes all you need to know about the looming disasters (in the next 10-20 years) that could have hundreds of thousands of people displaced and cost tens of thousands of jobs. The website also highlighted how Egypt had signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change on June 9, 1992 and ratified it on Dec. 5, 1994 and entered it into force on March 5, 1995. It also turns out that Egypt had signed the Kyoto Protocol on March 15, 1999 and ratified it on Jan. 12 2005 and entered it into force about a month later. I must say I was impressed until I came across the section on National Legislation and Policy which cited Law 4/1994 for the Environment and the National Policy: Preparation of National Climate Change Action Plan; in-depth evaluation of priority mitigation and adaptation technologies/measures and identification of opportunities to promote technology diffusion; assessment of additional resources that Egypt requires to implement the plan; and raising public awareness to anticipate and manage the physical and socioeconomic impacts of climate change among others. Clearly there is no shortage of studies, researches and conferences on how to implement and supervise these national policies. We are all aware of the drive towards more energy efficiency through the environment ministry's support for the national project to promote the switch from petroleum to natural gas in cars (mainly taxis), but we have yet to see how effective this has been in curbing carbon emissions. But other than that, the issue of climate change and its pending disastrous impact on millions of Egyptians is completely out of the public picture. What percentage of Egyptians is even aware of the threat of climate change to their livelihood? Does the government have a crisis-management plan in place to deal with the submergence of the Delta and the displacement of thousands living on the Mediterranean coast? How do we protect our tourism industry from the effects of an over-heated globe? Furthermore, how many factories (especially in the cement sector) for instance, have been approached and supported to adopt cleaner, greener operating energy strategies? According to an article in Egypt's Business Today magazine "the expansion of the local cement industry has roused some critics, primarily those concerned about the growth of pollution-heavy cement plants. "Writing in several opposition newspapers, the report continues, "environmentalists have objected to the impact of the construction of such a large number of new factories in such a relatively short period of time. Plants create pollution, including the emissions that cause global warming, and the European Union limits the amount of emissions that European cement factories can produce, effectively limiting the amount of cement that can be produced on the continent. Although this gives Egypt a competitive advantage, it is to the detriment of the country's already highly polluted natural environment. What has been the government's response to these very legitimate fears? Like other developing economies, it's true that Egypt is not responsible for the crisis and so should not be required to pay for it by being forced to cut its industrial growth in order to curb emissions, but at the same time we need to negotiate a fair deal with the developed world to ensure a transfer of clean technology and environmental know-how at as little cost as possible to our national coffers. A global binding climate change agreement is, as experts and policy-makers concluded at the forum, not an anti-growth initiative, but an issue of energy, security, displacement and refugees. It's the simplest and poorest Egyptians who will suffer the most by this and so the government owes them to come up with the right planning and implementation to mitigate the disastrous effects of climate change as far as possible. We must act now before it's too late. Rania Al Malkyis the Chief Editor of Daily News Egypt.
