Egypt is hosting COP 27, the 27th United Nations Conference on Climate Change, for almost two weeks. Representatives from over 190 countries are expected in Sharm El-Sheikh from November 6th to 18th, 2022. A choice of host country that raises questions, while an Egyptian who cares about the environment can end up in prison. And that the state, which is now trying to create an “ecological” image, is far from exemplary.
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To cope with demographic pressures, Egypt has launched a policy of new cities across the country, including one personally requested by President al-Sissi: the new capital built 50 km from central Cairo in the middle of the desert. . A gigantic project with little known environmental impact. And who, in cop’s day, is a scarecrow to some.
In short, futuristic glass towers growing in the middle of the desert, as President Al-Sissi personally wanted. The new capital has been under construction since 2016. Researcher Sandrine Gamblin already works there: her university has moved there.
“It’s quite impressive because it comes out of nowhere and at the same time something is happening around it every week,” she says. We’ll have a road that’s finally paved, and after the pavement, green space.”
“It’s a vision that we either subscribe to or not. I never tire of it.”
Sandrine Gamblin, researcher
at franceinfo
This new city does have critics. It has already cost billions and was designed without comprehensive environmental considerations, says urban planner Galila El Kadi. “There was no impact study: none, regrets the latter. The environment is not taken into account at all! There are no solar panels, in any of the new cities, not even the most recent ones, if we have them I don’t know how many sunny days a year! The they could have at least done it! At the highest level of the state, they don’t care…”
While Egypt has promised to generate 42% of its electricity by 2035 from renewable energy sources, particularly solar power, the country on the other hand produces and exports gas, a fossil energy that Europeans coveted, especially since the start of the war in Ukraine.