Topic: Environmental Impacts of Emerging Energy Technology
Country: Egypt
Delegate Name: Claire Dennis
School: Roeper School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Egypt position papers GLIMUN 2010 committees
Over ninety-percent of the Arab Republic of Egypt’s energy consumption is provided by oil and natural gas. In recent years, oil consumption has eclipsed oil exports, making us reliant upon foreign resources. Egypt also faces relatively limited oil resources. These factors coupled with our concern for the environment make it crucial that our nation find new sources of energy besides fossil fuels. New possible renewable energy sources particularly promising to our nation are wind and solar energy. Egypt’s vast deserts are ideal for solar energy, and the Gulf of Suez is one of the most promising locations for global wind energy development.
Our nation has already begun to take advantage of the World Bank’s Clean Technology Fund, and intends to shift to 20% renewable energy sources by 2020. The Arab Republic of Egypt also views it as extremely advantageous from an economic perspective to invest in renewable energies, creating new sectors of industry for the production, distribution and development of green technologies. Egypt believes that while there are some drawbacks to new sources of energy, these are for the most part, not nearly significant enough compared to our nation’s dependency upon greenhouse gas producing fossil fuels.
Both wind and solar energy produce no air pollution and are overall excellent energy alternatives, however, there are small, indirect concerns. With solar energy, there are possibilities of small amounts of toxin production. Wind energy raises concerns of bird safety, however, these effects are slight and dependant upon a specific type of wind turbine in specific locations. On the whole, we believe that the drawbacks of these renewable energy sources are negligible compared to those of fossil fuels. The Arab Republic of Egypt believes that the development of renewable energy sources is vital to our economic and environmental development and that possible drawbacks are minimal in comparison to the severe environmental and economic effects of fossil fuel dependency.
