Raising Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change in Energy and Food Sectors of Egypt

Abstract

It's highly probable that climate change will impact food security on a global, regional, and local scale. Climate change can disrupt food availability, reduce access to food, and affect food quality. Accordingly, climate change’s impacts on both the agricultural sector reflected on food security and pose a serious threat to sustainable development. Furthermore, the total energy demand of Egypt is marked by an exponential growth of demand on electricity, at a pace much faster than that of GDP, of primary energy consumption and of population mainly due to a doubling up of the consumptions of Egypt. The expected development of the industrial sector, the accelerated access to electricity, and the improvement of standards of living (directly connected with the consumption of the residential sector) are the reasons for these consumption upsurges. The different components of climatic change such as projected increases in temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, changes in extreme weather events, and reductions in water availability may all result in reduced agricultural productivity and may cause energy consumption upsurges. The main problem pertaining to climatic change and climatic variability in Egypt and even in some parts of the Mediterranean Basin is that systematic climate observation programs are, at present, inadequate to permit reliable assessment, quantification and prediction of climatic conditions and their impacts. A more accurate assessments of regional climate variability and change and their related environmental and socio-economic impacts are highly needed.