Egypt

Egypt submitted its second, updated 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 (Government of Egypt, 2023). Egypt also lists measures for the industry, buildings, tourism and waste sectors but does not commit to specific emissions reductions. 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 July 2023.

* See Assumptions section for a discussion on GWP values.

Egypt submitted its second updated NDC on 26 June 2023 (Government of Egypt, 2023). This update is exactly the same as the previous, 2022, submission, with the exception of the revised renewable energy target.

Egypt has now 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 new NDC target is conditional on international support and Egypt still does not have an unconditional emissions reduction target. The CAT estimates Egypt can easily achieve this target – even without international support – and should therefore substantially strengthen it.

The new 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 & 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)
• Transport: 115* MtCO₂e (down from a business-as-usual scenario of 124* MtCO₂e)
• Oil & gas production (associated gases sub-sector): 1.1 MtCO₂e¹ (down from a business-as-usual scenario of 3.1 MtCO₂e²)

*NOTE: The figures used in Egypt’s NDC use global warming potential values from the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report (SAR). We have not converted the values from electricity and transport to AR4 values as CO₂ is the dominant gas (see the Assumptions section for further details).

These three sectors accounted for 43% of Egypt’s total GHG emissions³ in 2015, the baseline year. In total, Egypt pledges to reduce emissions by 92 MtCO₂e compared to 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 emissions reductions. The agriculture and land use sectors are excluded from mitigation action in the NDC.

We estimate the conditional NDC target would lead to emissions increasing from around 345 MtCO₂ today to 496–512 MtCO₂e in 2030. 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. Emissions for the electricity and transport sectors would increase by 52% and 140%, respectively, between 2015 and 2030.

Egypt has not communicated its BAU scenario, making it difficult to quantify the overall emissions level resulting from the NDC. We have estimated a BAU scenario using the values provided for electricity, transport and oil & gas and estimating emissions for the remaining sectors using historical trends. The upper end of our target range is based on the quantified reductions for the three sub-sectors only. For the lower end, we also estimated some of the emissions reductions for the policies and measures proposed for the industry and buildings sector. For more details on our calculations, please refer to the assumptions section.

¹0.89 MtCO₂e in SAR GWP, as expressed in the original NDC document. See Assumptions section for further details on conversion.
²2.6 MtCO₂e in SAR GWP, as expressed in the original NDC document. See Assumptions section for further details on conversion.
³Expressed in AR4 Global Warming Potential. Egypt’s NDC, expressed in SAR GWP, states these sectors accounted for 43% of total emissions in 2015.

Target development timeline & previous CAT analysis

• 28.03.2022 First NDC
• 08.08.2022 First NDC update

The CAT rates NDC targets against what a fair contribution to achieving the Paris Agreement’s long-term temperature goal would be as well as against what needs to happen within a country’s own borders.

Egypt only has a conditional target. We rate the conditional target against the level of reductions needed within its border (‘Conditional NDC target against modelled domestic pathways’). Egypt does not have an unconditional emissions reduction target. In the absence of a target, we use our estimate for Egypt’s business-as-usual target as its unconditional target.

The CAT rates Egypt’s conditional target “Highly insufficient”. The “Highly insufficient” rating indicates that Egypt’s conditional NDC target in 2030 leads to rising, rather than falling, emissions and is not at all consistent with the 1.5°C temperature limit when compared to modelled domestic pathways. If all countries were to follow Egypt’s approach, warming could reach over 3°C and up to 4°C.

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 “Critically insufficient”. The “Critically insufficient” rating signals minimal to no action and is not at all consistent with the 1.5°C temperature limit. Egypt’s (estimated) target is not in line with any interpretation of a fair approach to meeting the 1.5°C limit. If all countries were to follow Egypt’s approach, warming would exceed 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.

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 July 2023. Egypt launched its 2050 National Climate Change Strategy in May 2022 but it does not include an emissions reduction target (Government of Egypt, 2022).