Abstract
A successful green transition in the Middle East is expected to be challenging. Israel, Gaza and Egypt are highly susceptible to the side-effects of climate change; Gaza suffers from a lack of energy security which affects national and regional stability; Egypt and Israel are highly exposed to structural transformation in global energy architecture. As regional temperatures increase faster than the rest of the world, the population rapidly grows and resources become increasingly scarce, the imperative for cooperation in the fields of energy and water are greater than ever before.
Egypt and Israel are uniquely positioned to cooperate in these areas, with clear socio-economic benefits for all actors involved, including the Gaza Strip inhabitants. However, the complex political context of the region during recent years has prevented the regional actors from obtaining smart and joint decisions on water and renewable matters.
So far, cross-border water cooperation is very limited and energy cooperation between Cairo and Jerusalem has focused on gas, mainly for strategic purposes. The agreement signed last February between Israeli and Egyptian energy ministers to build an offshore pipeline between the Israeli Leviathan gas field and the Egyptian liquefaction plants is indeed a strategy to align gas exports with a potentially rising European demand, at least during the first decade of the green transition, until 2030.
To ensure regional stability and a sustainable green transition, Egypt, Israel and Gaza should start building on the management of water and energy as shared resources.
The presentation seeks to explain how Egypt, Gaza and Israel could benefit from the creation of practical Nexus projects by sharing expertise and managing resources in the fields of renewable energy and desalinated water. Partnerships between policymakers, practitioners, and scientists are essential to identifying best practices and solutions across the water-energy nexus in the region, and science, water and energy diplomacy should play a key role, leveraging the current geopolitical context.
Although still challenging, the operationalization of the water-renewables nexus among the regional actors is expected to bring socio-economic benefits, to advance the EU's climate agenda and, last but not least, could contribute to stabilizing the Middle East region by mitigating the joint energy and water shortage challenges that the region already faces.
Authors
Tiziana della Ragione
Poster Session 4 (Nexus Pilots), Room 5 - 27th September, 15:45-16:45
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