Egypt

Egypt submitted its Second Updated 2030 NDC to the UNFCCC on 26 June 2023, strengthening only its emissions reduction target in the power sector.

Egypt’s NDC still does not include an economy-wide emissions reduction target but rather presents emissions reductions to be achieved in the electricity, transport and oil & gas sub-sectors. Egypt also lists measures for the industry, buildings, tourism and waste sectors but does not commit to specific emissions reductions in those sectors. The agriculture and land use sectors are excluded from mitigation action in the NDC. The lack of transparency in the NDC makes any assessment of the targets difficult.

The NDC is conditional on Egypt receiving international support. Egypt does not specify whether any portion of the NDC is unconditional.

We estimate Egypt can easily overachieve its NDC target with the policies it has already put in place, and it should therefore submit a strengthened target that incentivises additional emission reductions.

Egypt does not have a net zero emissions target, nor has it submitted a Long-Term Strategy to the UNFCCC as of September 2025.

* See Assumptions section for a discussion on GWP values.

Egypt submitted its Second Updated NDC on 26 June 2023. This update is almost identical to its previous submission in 2022, with the exception of a slightly revised emissions reduction target in the power sector.

Egypt has committed to achieving 42% of renewable energy in its generation mix by 2030, five years earlier than under the previous NDC. Consequently, Egypt strengthened its emissions reduction target in the power sector by 10 MtCO₂e or 14% compared to the previous target. However, since this revised target is the only modification, the overall impact of this NDC update remains minor.

The latest NDC still lacks transparency, making any quantitative assessment difficult. The target is conditional on international support and Egypt still does not have an unconditional emissions reduction target. The CAT estimates Egypt can easily overachieve this target with the policies it already has in place, even without international support.

This NDC still does not include an economy-wide emissions target but instead includes emissions reductions to be achieved in the following sub-sectors: electricity, transport and oil & fossil gas.

By 2030, Egypt pledges to the following emissions levels in these sectors:

• Electricity: 134 MtCO₂e (down from a business-as-usual scenario of 215 MtCO₂e, equivalent to 37% below BAU)
• Transport: 115 MtCO₂e (down from a business-as-usual scenario of 124 MtCO₂e, equivalent to 7% below BAU)
• Oil & fossil gas production (associated gases sub-sector): 0.9 MtCO₂e (down from a business-as-usual scenario of 2.6 MtCO₂e, equivalent to 65% below BAU)

*NOTE: The figures used in Egypt’s NDC use global warming potential values from the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report (SAR). For the calculation, we converted the SAR values to AR5 values (see the Assumptions section for further details).

These three sectors accounted for 43% of Egypt’s total GHG emissions in 2015, the baseline year. In total, Egypt pledges to reduce emissions by 92 MtCO₂e below a business-as-usual pathway in these sectors.

The revised target for the electricity sector is more ambitious than the previous one, as Egypt aims to reach it five years earlier and clarifies that it pertains to the share of electricity generation rather than capacity.

Egypt also lists measures for the industry, buildings, tourism and waste sectors but does not commit to specific emission reductions. The NDC excludes the agriculture and land use sectors from mitigation action.

We estimate the conditional NDC target would lead to emissions increasing from around 397 MtCO₂ in 2023 to 539–554 MtCO₂e in 2030, or 76–80% above 2010. The emissions level resulting from this target is well above what we project Egypt’s emissions trajectory to be with the policies it has implemented.

Egypt has not communicated its economy-wide BAU scenario, making it difficult to quantify the overall emissions level resulting from the NDC. The NDC provides 2030 BAU values for the electricity, transport, and oil and fossil gas sub-sectors only. We have estimated 2030 BAU values by extrapolating the average annual growth trend observed over 2005–2015 to the 2015 baseline year reported in Egypt’s First Biennial Update Report (BUR1). This represents a methodological change from relying on external reference scenarios, as it ensures consistency with Egypt’s own reported data and provides a more transparent, data-driven basis for extrapolation. For more details on our calculations, please refer to the assumptions section.

Target development timeline & previous CAT analysis

• 28.03.2022 First NDC
• 08.08.2022 First NDC update

Developing countries like Egypt will need support to achieve emissions reductions in line with a physically required pathway to achieving the 1.5°C long-term temperature goal.

Egypt only has a conditional target. It has not specified whether a portion of the target is conditional on international support or whether its NDC has an international element. In the absence of an unconditional target, we use our estimate for Egypt’s business-as-usual target as its unconditional target and rate it against modelled domestic pathways.

The CAT rates Egypt’s conditional target “Critically Insufficient”. This rating indicates that Egypt’s conditional NDC target in 2030 reflects minimal to no action and is not at all consistent with the 1.5°C temperature limit. If all countries were to follow Egypt’s approach, warming would exceed 4°C.

The rating of Egypt’s conditional NDC target has deteriorated compared to our previous assessment due to an update in our modelled domestic pathways to the pathways assessed in the IPCC AR6. Our newer pathways better capture national circumstances and, for higher temperature levels, show less room for emissions growth than the previous set.

In the absence of an unconditional NDC emissions reduction target, the CAT takes Egypt’s estimated ‘business as usual’ scenario as its unconditional commitment and rates it “Highly insufficient”. This rating indicates that Egypt’s BAU scenario in 2030 leads to rising, rather than falling, emissions and is not at all consistent with its fair share of the global mitigation effort to limit warming to 1.5°C. If all countries were to follow Egypt’s approach, warming could reach over 3°C and up to 4°C.

Egypt would need to roughly stabilise emissions at today’s levels to meet its fair share of the global mitigation effort to keep temperature rise below 1.5°C.

The rating of the BAU against fair share has improved from “Critically Insufficient” to “Highly Insufficient”. This reflects a literature update to our fair share (FS) ranges, aligning our equity approaches with international environmental law and excluding studies based solely on cost-effectiveness. We also incorporated additional recent studies to capture the latest research in the field. Importantly, this adjustment does not indicate any actual improvement in Egypt’s climate targets compared to our previous assessment.

Further information on how the CAT rates countries (against modelled pathways and fair share) can be found here.

Egypt does not have a net zero target, nor has it submitted a long-term strategy (LTS) to the UNFCCC as of September 2025. Egypt launched its 2050 National Climate Change Strategy in May 2022 but it does not include an emissions reduction target.