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1. The Future of Water in MENA is at Stake

Author:
Malak Altaeb
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:
School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is one of the most water-stressed regions in the world. Global warming has exacerbated water shortages in water-poor areas, increased the risk of drought for agriculture, and increased the vulnerability of vital ecosystems. North Africa, specifically, has registered one of the lowest water rates in the world of less than 500 cubic meters per capita per annum. It is undeniable that climate change will play a massive role in the region’s choices regarding water as a resource. Unequal distribution of water resources in a region where they are already scarce has led to their overexploitation. For example, groundwater, which is the primary water source for domestic, agricultural, and industrial uses, has been used to expand agriculture into arid or desert areas through agribusiness companies. These companies promote the use of groundwater-based agriculture for economic profit, which increases the pressure placed on these valuable water resources.
Topic:
Climate Change, Natural Resources, Water, Scarcity, and Resource Management
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

2. Could the Future of Work be Green? Two Plot Twists

Author:
Ghada Barsoum
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:
School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:
There are multiple intriguing, often competing, narratives about the future of work. To some, it is digital, virtual, inclusively diverse, and overall promising. To others, it is scary, with machines taking over most of the work we thought we could do. Giant tech companies made much noise a couple of years ago by calling for universal basic income to compensate for anticipated job losses. Even creative writing, what we humans thought we could exclusively do, was threatened by the recent emergence of ChatGPT. One of the less circulated narratives about the future of work is that it can be green. Lone voices about green jobs were heard after the global financial crisis of 2008, with efforts spearheaded by a number of international organizations including the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). More than five years later, in 2013, the ILO offered a definition of green jobs during its Conference of Labour Statisticians, as jobs that are meant to “preserve or restore the environment, be they in traditional sectors such as manufacturing and construction, or in new, emerging green sectors such as renewable energy and energy efficiency”. They also noted that green jobs could help reduce negative environmental impact and lead to sustainable enterprises and economies. Green jobs have been heralded as the promising win-win scenario, reconciling the long competing objectives of economic growth and environmental sustainability.
Topic:
Climate Change, Employment, Economic Growth, Green Jobs, and Future of Work
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. When Consensus Is Reached

Author:
Miguel Ruiz Cabañas
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:
School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:
The conferences of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) should be seen as a continuous annual process, and not as separate events. Only by analyzing the scope of the decisions adopted at previous conferences, and the content of the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that warn about the challenges facing the international community in reducing the global threat of climate change and countries’ new issues of concern, can the result of each conference be objectively evaluated. The Framework Convention was adopted in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It entered into force in 1995, the year in which the first Conference of the Parties (COP) took place in Bonn, Germany. Today, it is the convention that has the greatest international acceptance, with the accession of 197 states, including the 193 UN member states, and some territories that have also committed to implement its provisions.
Topic:
Climate Change, United Nations, Consensus, and Conference of the Parties (COP)
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. A Bank of Actions: Making Good on Losses and Damages

Author:
Arunabha Ghosh
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:
School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:
Egypt assumed the presidency of the Conference of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) during a devastating year of heat waves, droughts, lost crops, and extreme floods. These events made it impossible to ignore climate-related damages to lives and livelihoods. They also made clear that the long-held assumptions that the rich would escape the impact and the poor would need to adapt to it no longer held true. The undeniable truth is that the climate crisis is impacting vulnerable communities across the world. The agreement on a loss and damage finance facility was the most consequential outcome from the twenty-seventh round of negotiations (COP27) held in Sharm El-Sheikh. But the goal of keeping temperature rise to levels that could minimize loss and damage continues to slip away. Egypt, which will hold the COP presidency until November 2023, has an opportunity to orient COP away from conversation and commitments and toward action and accountability. To do so, it will need to implement a suite of reforms based on protecting vulnerable populations, ensuring party compliance, increasing transparency, and democratizing the energy transition.
Topic:
Climate Change, Accountability, Conference of the Parties (COP), and Energy Transition
Political Geography:
India, Egypt, and Island States

5. COP27 and the Sustainable City: Global Climate Solution or Mirage?

Author:
Patrick J. Bohlen
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:
School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:
Cities are central to any discussion about climate change policy if for no other reason than that they create the most greenhouse emissions. They are also where most people live and where more of the world’s population will reside in the coming decades. Cities are responsible for an estimated 75 percent of climate emissions, despite the fact that they take up only 3 percent of the planet’s land surface. In addition to their current emissions, cities are likely to contribute more in the future due to projected increases in urban population and urbanization. The Sharm El-Sheikh Implementation Plan, which was revealed at COP27, recognizes the important role of cities in addressing climate change, but according to the UN-Habitat program, urban climate challenges and climate policies and responses do not always align. Furthermore, although global climate policy stresses the importance of cities, insufficient attention has been given to the intersecting issues of population growth, urban expansion, and urban sustainability. The world’s urban population is expanding rapidly. In 2018, cities accounted for 55 percent of the world’s population and, by 2050, they will account for a whopping 68 percent, with an estimated 6.7 billion people living in cities alone. Most of that projected growth will occur in large cities, including new and existing megacities, which are home to a population of more than 10 million. Nine of the ten new megacities that will emerge between 2018 and 2030 will be in developing countries—two in Africa and seven in Asia. Accommodating this urban growth will have an impact on the climate and is likely to increase global greenhouse gas emissions. Although recent estimates indicate that urban growth will slow down after 2030, the current alarming rate begs the question of which development paths cities will take in response, and what impact they will have on climate emissions and policy. For instance, the UN Environment Programme estimates that 90 trillion dollars of urban infrastructure will be built by 2050 to accommodate the growing global urban population. Building urban infrastructure requires immense quantities of fossil fuel-dependent materials such as steel, concrete, and plastic. Feeding the growing urban population means increased food production which is unlikely to be sustained without increased use of mineral fertilizer, another fossil fuel input. Even with heroic efforts to minimize the carbon footprint of expanding cities, for example by implementing best green building practices, building efficient mass transit systems, and incorporating renewable energy systems, it is hard to envision that these cities can be built without risking added greenhouse gas emissions.
Topic:
Climate Change, Cities, Sustainability, and Conference of the Parties (COP)
Political Geography:
Middle East and Dubai

6. Good to the Last Drop

Author:
Thomas L. Crisman and Zachary S. Winters
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:
School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:
In 1907, Theodore Roosevelt was asked how his cup of coffee tasted, to which he responded “good to the last drop”. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is exhausting its limited water resources, and without adaptive management and alternative water sources will soon reach the “last drop”. This threatens the future of humanity in this region, as the UN recognized in 2010 by declaring that access to water and sanitation (termed the “human right to water and sanitation” or HRWS) is a basic human right due to its necessity for sustaining human life. Many MENA countries always had scarce surface waters, mainly springs, that were quickly diminished or totally lost to pumping of groundwater for agriculture. In 1990 and before placing significant curbs on pumping, Saudi Arabia had forty-six active springs. It now has only fifteen. Major aquifers of the region containing “fossil water” from moderate climate periods thousands of years ago have been significantly reduced in size and volume to a point where they are no longer viable water sources. Nations have recently resorted to building expensive desalination plants to supply their basic water demands. Even nations relying on major rivers (the Nile, Tigris, or Euphrates) as traditionally inexhaustible sources of water have seen both the quantity and predictability of water threatened by climate change and increased human demands in the multiple countries they flow through. Current water sources are either too expensive or too threatened politically to be wasted.
Topic:
Climate Change, Water, Food, Conservation, Energy, and Conference of the Parties (COP)
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

7. Prepping for COP27

Author:
Thomas L. Crisman, David Dumke, and Zachary S. Winters
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:
School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:
Egypt is a microcosm for the impacts of climate change being felt across the MENA region, with water loss at the very top. It should likewise be high on the agenda when Cairo hosts this year’s UN climate summit
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, International Cooperation, United Nations, and Regionalism
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, North Africa, Egypt, and MENA

8. Why Climate Journalism Must be Mainstreamed in the Arab World

Author:
Sarah El-Shaarawi
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:
School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:
While the issue of climate change journalism is particularly relevant to the Arab World today, as the upcoming COP27 and COP28 will be hosted in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates respectively, climate reporting in the region still lacks a critical lens that reflects the issue’s urgency
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Religion, and Regionalism
Political Geography:
Middle East

9. Young People Are Leading Climate Activism in the Middle East

Author:
Neeshad Shafi
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:
School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:
Across the Arab World and the Middle East, young people are mobilizing to raise climate change awareness.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Social Movement, and Youth
Political Geography:
Middle East

10. Climate Change and the Global South: The Case of Africa

Author:
Agnes Babugura
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:
School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:
Should climate change continue unaddressed, it is estimated that of the additional 30–170 million people who are likely to suffer from malnutrition or under-nutrition globally in the coming years, three-quarters will be in Africa.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Poverty, Inequality, and Nutrition
Political Geography:
Africa