Egypt taking major strides towards green growth, SDGs..Recommended future actions
Advancing towards a green economy has received significant traction as part of Egypt’s commitment to ...
Egypt taking major strides towards green growth, SDGs..Recommended future actions
Advancing towards a green economy has received significant traction as part of Egypt’s commitment to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Egypt’s Vision 2030 promotes an integrated approach towards sustainable development. The government is committed to promoting an investment-friendly climate to turn environmental challenges into opportunities. It aims to allocate all its public investments to green projects by 2030.
In 2016, the country launched its first national Sustainable Development Strategy: Egypt’s Vision 2030, which aligns national priorities with the SDGs. Several other initiatives – such as the 2016 national strategy for a green economy, sovereign green bonds, the Nexus of Water and the Food and Energy Platform (NWFE) – aim to advance Egypt’s green transition as a driver of investments, innovation and, in turn, new economic opportunities.
Under Egypt’s green financing framework, half of public investment should be green by 2025. To monitor progress towards implementing the SDGs, the government prepared three voluntary national reviews in 2016, 2018 and 2021, as well as localized assessment reports at governorate level. It has started mainstreaming the SDGs into sectoral action plans.
The government has also established a dedicated national monitoring and evaluation system and set up a centralized co-ordination body under the auspices of the Prime Minister’s Office. SDG focal points ensure co-ordination at sectoral level and within the 27 governorates at subnational level.
In July, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) issued its first Green Growth Policy Review of Egypt 2024 to examine progress towards sustainable development and green growth over the past decade. The OECD came up with 40 recommendations aiming to help Egypt improve its environmental performance, giving a special focus to building climate-smart, resilient and inclusive cities.
Egypt’s efforts to cut emissions:
Egypt has stepped up climate action as the government set three sector-specific targets to reduce emissions: -37% for electricity, -7% for transport and -65% for oil and gas by 2030 compared to business-as-usual, conditional on more international financial support.
It has started operationalizing the National Climate Change Strategy 2050. However, it is facing implementation challenges related to financial resources to expand capacity at all levels. More regular GHG emissions updates are needed to help analyze the impacts of mitigation and adaptation measures.
The adverse effects of climate change increasingly affect all economic sectors. The government is planning to complete its National Adaptation Plan in 2025.
Accelerating transition to clean energy:
There is significant potential to accelerate the clean energy transition. The government aims to increase the contribution of renewables to 42% of the generation mix by 2030. It plans to close 5 GW of inefficient oil and gas power generation capacity and facilitate private investment to create 10 GW of new renewable energy capacity.
In parallel, Egypt is continuing to upgrade transmission and distribution networks, and invest in digital technology and storage infrastructure.
It aims to become one of the largest exporters of low-carbon hydrogen. It also plans to complete its first nuclear power plant in 2030.
There are immense opportunities to leapfrog towards a low-carbon transport system. New urban settlements could be more compact to guarantee easy access to transport links. The electric public transport system is expanding (e.g. Cairo Monorail). The government also advanced plans to develop a 2 000 km high-speed rail network linking 60 cities across the country.
Egypt has taken steps to accelerate its fleet renewal, but electric mobility is in its infancy.
Egypt’s efforts to improve air quality:
As air pollution poses serious health concern, the Egyptian government has taken over the past decade several measures to improve air quality by regulating industrial emissions, improving solid waste management, upscaling public transport and, more recently, introducing electric buses.
It also helped establish a collection system for rice straws, preventing the burning of agricultural waste that leads to toxic emissions (black clouds). Developing an integrated air pollution reduction strategy, including timebound and more stringent targets for major air pollutants, would be an important next step.
Egypt’s efforts in waste management domain:
The government achieved an important milestone with the ratification of the Waste Management Law in 2020. The law introduces measures to reduce single-use plastic bags, a “Green Label” certification to reduce industrial waste and extended responsibility for producers.
The government has set ambitious goals to upgrade solid waste management infrastructure. It will need to further enforce implementation. This requires better information and waste data to monitor progress towards targets.
Egypt’s efforts to rationalize water consumption:
Egypt is moving towards absolute water scarcity with less than 500 m3 per capita of annual water supply. Economic incentives are needed to rationalize water use in agriculture.
The 2021 Water Resources and Irrigation Law is a major step forward to unify attempts to improve water use and protect the quality of water bodies. It includes provisions for water user associations and climate change adaptation. Water and sanitation services need to better reflect the full financial cost.
Egypt committed to protecting biodiversity:
Egypt has been committed to protecting biodiversity, but better implementation is needed across all sectors. While pressures on biodiversity are growing, knowledge about the health of species and ecosystems has improved overall.
The government has started an update of its National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan to reflect the new commitments under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
However, implementation of commitments still faces some challenges in many areas due to limited financial and human resources.
Local expertise also needs to be strengthened. The government revised the fee system for protected areas to raise additional revenues. It intends to declare the coral reef habitat of the Red Sea stretching over 1 800 km as protected areas in 2024.
Egypt is upgrading its long-standing environmental policy and legal framework:
Environmental considerations are increasingly integrated into many sectoral policies. A proposed new Environment Law provides an excellent opportunity to set a unifying legal framework for environmental protection and climate action. The effectiveness of environmental impact assessment (EIA) is constrained by weak technical and financial capacity, limited consideration of cumulative effects or alternatives, insufficient enforcement and lack of public participation.
Environmental expertise needs to be enhanced through training and capacity building at all levels. In 2024, the government started publishing online executive summaries of EIA reports for highly polluting projects.
Environmental information and data have improved. The monitoring capacity for air, water and soil has expanded but still requires efforts to align with international standards. Implementing the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting would provide a robust basis to inform the plans for greening national accounts. Environmental data and information remain scattered across various ministries.
It is critical to improve data sharing between national entities, as well as between Egypt and stakeholders. Beyond awareness-raising campaigns, public participation in environmental decision making needs to be further enhanced.
Environmentally related tax:
Environmentally related tax revenue has increased, but its share in gross domestic product remains low. The bulk of this tax revenue comes from energy products, mainly excises on petroleum products used for transport.
Egypt has neither taxes on pollution and resources nor an explicit carbon tax to directly address GHG emissions.
Emissions from electricity production and industry sectors remain largely unpriced.
The government could consider introducing a climate component in vehicle taxation and increase the use of road pricing.
Green investment could be better prioritized when providing corporate income tax incentives. In 2022, the Special Incentive was expanded to include projects of strategic interest, namely green hydrogen and green ammonia, waste management, e-mobility and alternatives to single-use plastic. However, it is also available for non-green projects, which may weaken incentives for green investment.
Cities play pivotal role in supporting green transition:
Cities are the engines of Egypt’s growth and can support its green transition by stimulating urban economic activity, green innovation, jobs, skills and more inclusive development.
At the same time, cities are major sources of pollution and are also exposed to multiple climate-related hazards, especially heatwaves, flash floods, dust storms and rising sea levels for coastal cities.
Current urban policies have been unable to keep pace with population pressures, which have led to uncontrolled urban expansion, environmental degradation and precarious living conditions.
Meanwhile, many new urban communities built on desert land adjacent to existing cities struggle to attract new residents. In 2023, the government adopted a National Urban Policy to promote positive transformative change in cities.
Administrative reforms are needed to better consider the rural-urban continuum. The 2026 national population census is an opportunity to reconsider administrative divisions and review the definition of urban areas to ensure that policies and funding address the specific needs of its populations, as well as challenges associated with urban sprawl.
In line with the National Climate Change Strategy 2050, governorates should develop their own subnational climate change strategies. Moving to more participatory approaches would help better align urban policies with local development needs. This will require strengthening competences, capacities and financial autonomy of subnational governments.
Egypt needs to pursue efforts to promote climate-smart, resilient and inclusive cities. Despite stated green and inclusive principles, new cities continue to be constructed in an expansive manner. The building code requires important updates to support climate and environmental goals.
This could include the definition of national standards for low-carbon construction material, minimum energy efficiency standards, provisions for use of renewable energy sources and minimum requirements for green public spaces in residential areas.
The government can further green its own public buildings and social housing programs and develop a holistic approach to cooling policy. The central government needs to pursue efforts to downscale climate risk assessments at subnational level and develop appropriate city-level early warning systems.
Egypt upscaled nature-based coastal protection solutions in the Nile Delta. Cities have much scope to increase their green spaces. The government has made major strides in addressing unsafe areas. However, few efforts have been directed towards establishing mitigation and adaptation plans for existing urban areas, where most Egyptians live.
As part of Egypt’s Vision 2030, the government is committed to turning environmental challenges into opportunities. It has taken steps to move towards more sustainable waste management and address air pollution, which remains a health concern. Egypt has significant potential to accelerate its clean energy transition. While environmental information and data have improved overall, public participation in environmental decision making needs to be further enhanced.
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