Egypt cosniders use of renewable energy ‘luxury’: Essam Haggy

Some Arab countries, including Egypt, consider reliance on sustainable and renewable energy sources a luxury, said Egyptian space researcher Essam Haggy in an interview with Sky News Arabia Thursday.

Gulf countries, Morocco and Jordan depend on renewable and sustainable energy, whereas countries like Egypt, Sudan, Libya and Iraq consider it a kind of luxury, said Haggy.

The reason for the delay in the use of renewable energy in Egypt, Sudan, Libya and Iraq could also be attributed to the large population of those countries, he added.

But the use of renewable and sustainable energy is a political decision and not an economic one, said Haggy.

Haggy said natural disasters are the first reason for the bane of human race on the planet earth, adding that the death toll from natural phenomena are much larger than the victims of terrorism. Haggy used the tsunami in Indonesia, which killed nearly 500,000 people, as an example, juxtaposing the disaster with the terrorist bombing in Bali that killed dozens.

Future conflicts will be over water and green spaces due to climatic change, Haggy predicted.

Research published in scientific journals shows that the cause of global warming is due to carbon dioxide emissions, Haggy said, noting that it would contribute to the increase of temperatures in the near future.

The Arab world is one of the most vulnerable areas to climate change, because the main component of the region is desert, a region made up of a fragile environment that depends on groundwater originating from rain.

According to Haggy, Egypt gets 72 percent of its water needs from outside its borders. Climate change will also affect other countries along the Nile River, Haggy mentioned.

Haggy stressed the need to build awareness of the importance of the environment through education, pointing out that scientists are currently studying how climate change led to the loss of water on Mars.

source: Egypt Independent