Prime Ministerial Decree Reconstitu

Since its ratification of the United Nations Climate Change Framework Agreement,[1] Egypt has assigned responsibility for climate change to different government agencies, the most recent being the National Council for Climate Change, formed in 2015 (the “Council”).[2] The Council was mandated with creating a comprehensive government strategy, policies and plans for combating climate change and reducing CO2 emissions, as well as approving projects proposed by other bodies. In a decree issued earlier this May,[3] the mandate of the Council was amended to eliminate a commitment to ensuring that an increasing part of the national budget is directed to climate change initiatives, in particular reducing emissions, replacing it instead with the mandate to work towards raising funds from other sources, and subject to the goal of sustainable development. It also added a new mandate to include climate change in school syllabi at every level. The Council no longer has the ability to approve or fund projects and has no regulatory authority, and no time limits have been set for its first climate change policy. The new decree establishes a higher committee as well as executive and technical committees for the Council, and sets out their membership composition. The presidency of the Council was changed from the Minister of the Environment to the Prime Minister, in keeping with the government’s recent trend of consolidating power at the prime ministerial level. All committee members are government officials, though the Council includes industry, labour, civil society and expert members. Whereas previously the budget for the Council and its activities was to be allocated by the Ministry of Finance out of the budget for the Environmental Affairs Agency as a separate item, now the budget for the Council’s activities is to come from the Environmental Protection Special Fund, which is not subject to the same level of parliamentary scrutiny as the budget.   [1] United Nations, “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change”, 1992, available through this link. [2] Prime Ministerial Decree No. 1912/2015 forming the National Council for Climate Change, Official Gazette, Issue No. 23, 6 August 2015. [3] Prime Ministerial Decree No. 1129/2019 considering the National Council for Climate Change, established by virtue of Prime Ministerial Decision No. 1912/2015, as the national authority responsible for climate change, Official Gazette, Issue 18 (bis), 7 May 2019.