

photo courtesy of Environmental Performance Index website







photo courtesy of Environmental Performance Index website



CAIRO – 4 June 2018: A prominent strategy for Egypt to reduce air pollution’s rate by 50 percent in 2023 was announced by the Ministry of Environment on Monday, June 4.According to Minister Khaled Fahmy, dust is considered the main problem in Egypt’s air, as most of the country’s nature is desert. “Dusty winds and the scarcity of rains are the main factors contributing to the increased air pollution’s rate in Egypt,” Fahmy said.He explained that half of the current air pollution is basically due to “natural causes”; however, the other half comes as a result of unclean streets, and cars’ and power plants' exhaust.In 2017, the air pollution’s rate decreased by about 19 percent, compared to the pollution’s rate during 2015, according to Fahmy. He added that the ministry has a prominent plan to reduce the pollution rate by 50 percent by 2023, as part of the sustainable development strategy for the whole country.New regulations have been announced by the ministry to set rules to some of the factories that participate in increasing the pollution’s rate, including the cement and fertilizers factories for instance; air quality monitoring stations were also announced to be increased, according to Fahmy's statements.Fahmy affirmed that strict rules were set and agreed upon by most factories that increase air pollution through some of their daily practices.As part of the strategy, the government is working on reducing the cars’ exhaust through replacing old cars with electric ones. New buses are expected to be released soon with several modifications to control air pollution.Fahmy affirmed that Egypt is one of the few countries in the Middle East region, Africa and Asia that owns such a large number of air quality monitoring stations, which grant Egypt the privilege of predicting health effects and consequences of air pollution.Egypt Environmental Performance Index ranked 66 in the 2018 report; meanwhile, Switzerland ranked first, and Burundi ranked last.