Agricultural Production in Egypt: Assessing Vulnerability …
207
In order to implement the 2030 Agenda, the international community has endorsed
five principles of sustainable food and agriculture providing a framework for policy dialogue and for developing appropriate policies, strategies, regulations and
incentives. FAO [5] identified these principles as:
• Improving efficiency in the use of resources is crucial to sustainable agriculture;
• Sustainability requires direct action to conserve, protect and enhance natural
resources;
• Agriculture that fails to protect and improve rural livelihoods, equity and social
well-being is unsustainable;
• Enhanced resilience of people, communities and ecosystems is key to sustainable
agriculture;
• Sustainable food and agriculture require responsible and effective governance
mechanisms.
According to the definition of The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); climate change is “a change of climate which is attributed
directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global
atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over
comparable time periods”. UNFCC differentiate between climate change due to
human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and climate variability in
the short term that take place due to natural causes [6]. The global agreement on
climate change was adopted by 196 countries at the twenty-first Conference of the
Parties (COP 21) of UNFCC held in Paris in December 2015. By June 2017, 195
country had signed the agreement, including 148 that ratified it. Global commitment
to this agreement was reasserted during the COP 22 of UNFCC, held in Marrakesh,
Morocco, in November 2016.
It is well recognized that climate change and its effects pose a major threat to
achieve sustainable development goals. In the Arab region, climate change could
undermine past successes and prospects, although the region contributes less than 5%
to global greenhouse gas emissions [6]. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG13)
urges countries to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts, which
requires new and improved statistical measures on resilience, adaptive capacity and
resource mobilization.
The term ‘vulnerability’ may, therefore, refer to the vulnerable system itself, e.g.,
low-lying islands or coastal cities; the impact to this system, e.g., flooding of coastal
cities and agricultural lands or forced migration; or the mechanism causing these
impacts, e.g., the disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet. The vulnerability is
understood to be the “function of a system’s climate change exposure, sensitivity and
adaptive capacity to cope with climate change effects” [7]. According to the IPCC
[8], these terms are defined as follows:
• Exposure refers to changes in climate parameters that might affect socio-ecological
systems. Such parameters are for example temperature, precipitation and wind
speed, which climate change alters with regard to their quantity and quality as
well as their spatial and temporal distribution [6].
207
In order to implement the 2030 Agenda, the international community has endorsed
five principles of sustainable food and agriculture providing a framework for policy dialogue and for developing appropriate policies, strategies, regulations and
incentives. FAO [5] identified these principles as:
• Improving efficiency in the use of resources is crucial to sustainable agriculture;
• Sustainability requires direct action to conserve, protect and enhance natural
resources;
• Agriculture that fails to protect and improve rural livelihoods, equity and social
well-being is unsustainable;
• Enhanced resilience of people, communities and ecosystems is key to sustainable
agriculture;
• Sustainable food and agriculture require responsible and effective governance
mechanisms.
According to the definition of The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); climate change is “a change of climate which is attributed
directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global
atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over
comparable time periods”. UNFCC differentiate between climate change due to
human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and climate variability in
the short term that take place due to natural causes [6]. The global agreement on
climate change was adopted by 196 countries at the twenty-first Conference of the
Parties (COP 21) of UNFCC held in Paris in December 2015. By June 2017, 195
country had signed the agreement, including 148 that ratified it. Global commitment
to this agreement was reasserted during the COP 22 of UNFCC, held in Marrakesh,
Morocco, in November 2016.
It is well recognized that climate change and its effects pose a major threat to
achieve sustainable development goals. In the Arab region, climate change could
undermine past successes and prospects, although the region contributes less than 5%
to global greenhouse gas emissions [6]. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG13)
urges countries to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts, which
requires new and improved statistical measures on resilience, adaptive capacity and
resource mobilization.
The term ‘vulnerability’ may, therefore, refer to the vulnerable system itself, e.g.,
low-lying islands or coastal cities; the impact to this system, e.g., flooding of coastal
cities and agricultural lands or forced migration; or the mechanism causing these
impacts, e.g., the disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet. The vulnerability is
understood to be the “function of a system’s climate change exposure, sensitivity and
adaptive capacity to cope with climate change effects” [7]. According to the IPCC
[8], these terms are defined as follows:
• Exposure refers to changes in climate parameters that might affect socio-ecological
systems. Such parameters are for example temperature, precipitation and wind
speed, which climate change alters with regard to their quantity and quality as
well as their spatial and temporal distribution [6].