Egypt’s air pollution is making my daughter sick
Welcome to Climate Weekly!
This week, we’d like to introduce Rahma Diaa, a freelance journalist from Egypt who has been reporting on the city’s biggest crisis - air pollution.
Sabah al kheir!
Good morning,
I am Rahma, writing from Cairo, where the daily cough has been a part of life well before COVID-19.
This isn’t just me saying it, last week the results of a 10 year study researching air pollution were released, with alarming results.
With more than a 1,000 scientists from 23 countries analyzing environmental challenges across the Mediterranean, they argued that the combination of weak vehicle emissions standards, dust, a lack of public transport and ever increasing traffic emissions are causing alarmingly high levels of ozone and fine particle pollution.
This is particularly high in the biggest cities across the Middle East, like here in Cairo and Beirut, and it warns of the serious health consequences of air pollution.
This photo of a concrete factory’s emissions was taken recently by my neighbour, not far from our house
Everyone here feels these effects, as nine million Egyptians suffer from chest allergies and asthma, one sixth of them are children, according to the Egyptian Thoracic Society, and my daughter is one of these children. She has suffered from allergies since her birth, and needs to use medicated sprays throughout the year to control her cough.
In 2018, I worked with the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) on a year long investigative report documenting the health damage suffered by the residents surrounding the cement factories that depend on coal for the industrial process.
The investigation used medical reports to highlight that chronic diseases such as allergies, asthma and even lung cancer are significantly higher in areas adjacent to cement factories that use coal.
While most of the world has shifted away from coal use in industrial processes, the Egyptian Cabinet authorized the use of coal in industrial operations as recently as 2014, even in areas close to residential communities.
As you can imagine, the government of Egypt is still trying to brand itself as “green” and is genuinely spending millions of dollars on clean energy projects, many of which are indirectly funded through loans.
In September, The World Bank approved $200 million to support the “Greater Cairo Air Pollution Management and Climate Change Project”. This comes after the European Investment Bank poured in €350 billion last year to renovate the Cairo metro line.
In 2018, we also turned on one of the largest solar installations in the world, known as the Benban Solar Energy Complex. This has led the BBC to highlight Egypt as a renewable energy outliner in the region, through a recent report titled; “Are We Ready for the End of the Oil Age?. In it, they argued that increasing solar power is not only good for the environment, but reduces our risk of resource conflicts that continue to plague the region.
However, a recent report in Nature Communications argued that climate change in fact decrease the efficacy of solar panels, as increased humidity could to more clouds in the future.
While we’re genuinely working hard to encourage international investment in renewable energy, its our crippling domestic governance that continues to fail Cairo’s people, including my daughter.
From Climate Tracker
Opportunity: We’re opening up a 6 month journalism fellowship for 12 young journalists from around the world. Go ahead and apply!
The World’s most biodiverse Savannah in Brazil is changing, and its soon going to become a carbon emitter. From last week’s newsletter guest, Meghie Rodrigues
Biggest Stories this week
In case you missed these big global stories, here’s your weekly catch up:
Good News: Renewables have had a record year in 2020. At least some ppl are having a great year right?
USA: Joe Biden has picked his Energy, Environment and State Department Transition teams with a lot of solid climate faces from the Obama days. This made me happy to see competent people in important roles. I thought about Paris in 2015. Then, I remembered Copenhagen was also thanks to Obama - so meh. Better than Trump’s nonsense.
Data: ProPublica did an amazing data story on climate migration in the US, building off New data from the Rhodium Group which shows that climate damage will wreak havoc on the southern third of the country.
$$: Global banks are in the news a lot this week. The European Investment Bank is planning to loan out 1 trillion euros in green projects by 2030, the world’s 450 public development banks promised more for renewables too, but Asian development banks
Inspiring: South Korea’s youngest MP, Lee So-young, is pushing her new government to hit their 2050 targets…please read that sentence aloud…email me if you got it
Grumpy Old Men: Australia’s former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull flipped out on national TV at a high profile editor in Rupert Murdoch’s media empire over their climate denialism (Fox, Sky, Daily Mail, New York Post, The Australian etc).
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