On the easternmost outskirts of Cairo, the Egyptian government is building a giant belt of lakes and parks deep in the desert. Creators call it the “Green River” and say that when finished, the ornamental ribbon will cut through Egypt’s brand new, ultra-modern metropolis: its New Administrative Capital.

A digital simulation shows the “river” extending throughout the length of the New Capital, as it is commonly known, branching out into smaller lakes and pools.

The sleek video shown off five years ago by Egypt’s prime minister depicts lush riverbanks dotted with trees and occupying vast landscapes of greenery – even though the site is in the middle of a desert, with no natural sources of water nearby.

Just how the government plans to source the vast amounts of water for the project is unclear.

The oasis is being constructed in the middle of a worsening climate crisis. And as temperatures rise and the population balloons, water scarcity has become a critical concern for Egypt, host of this year’s COP27 climate summit, which began Sunday in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Universal access to clean water is Egypt’s top priority at the meeting, with a planning minister recently stating that the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development would not be fully realized if water equality wasn’t prioritized.

Egyptian authorities have repeatedly sounded alarms over the country’s water problems.

In May, the Minister of Local Development announced that the country had entered a stage of “water poverty” according to UN standards. The UN doesn’t have a metric for “water poverty,” but by its definition a country is considered water scarce when annual supplies drop below 1,000 cubic meters per capita, which the minister reported was the case.

And just last month, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said the country’s water resources could no longer meet the needs of the rapidly growing population, noting that his government is nonetheless taking strategic steps to conserve equal water supply. Sisi also announced that he is launching a new initiative called “Water Adaptation and Resilience” in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) at COP27.

Source CNN

BDST: 1522 HRS, NOV 9, 2022
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