Environment Ministry announces plans to curb water, air pollution

CAIRO – 22 July 2018: The Ministry of Environment announced Saturday its strategy and plan to curb air, water and sound pollution and its achievements.

Chief Executive Officer of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) Mohamed Shehab Abdel Wahab stated that the ministry is working to get rid of the problem of dust that pollutes the air by 2028, noting that they managed to decrease 19 percent of dust particles in the air from 2014 to 2017.

He added that 32 national networks of stations to monitor the noise level are distributed throughout the governorates 24/7; the ministry targets to increase these stations to reach 36 by 2020.

“Monthly, quarterly and annual reports are issued by the Ministry to determine the level of noise in each governorate and to reduce these rates through decisive measures. The most common cause of noise is traffic in addition to those areas that have both residential and industrial areas,” Abdel Wahab added.

Abdel Wahab asserted that Egypt has succeeded in getting rid of about 99 percent of the highly impacted substances that affect the ozone layer negatively after reducing the use of some high-warming materials.

Egypt jumped from the 104th position in 2016 to the 66th in the 2018 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) issued by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) on Monday.

In the annual bulletin on environmental statistics, CAPMAS said the Yale center issues the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) every two years.

The greenhouse gas emissions from petroleum and natural gas products consumption inched up 1.8 percent to stand at 209.96 million tons in 2016-2017 against 206.20 million tons in 2015-2016.

The electricity generated from environment-friendly resources shot up by 54.1 percent to stand at 2225.5 gigawatts/hour in 2015-2016 against 1444 gigawatts/hour in 2014-2015.

The amount of produced pure water rose 4.5 percent to 9.29 billion cubic meters in 2015-2016 against 8.89 billion cubic meters in 2014-2015.

The amount of consumed pure water increased by 6.3 percent to 6.5 billion cubic meters in 2015-2016 against 6.1 billion cubic meters in 2014-2015.