By Mohammed Ez and Valerie Volcovici

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt/Baku – Black dust has settled on the streets and on rooftops in a neighborhood adjacent to a giant cement factory in the Egyptian city of Alexandria.

Activists and local residents have accused the plant, operated by Alexandria Portland Cement Co., a subsidiary of Greece’s Titan Cement, of polluting the air by burning coal.

“Every night, we see particles falling from their chimneys. Under the street lights, you can clearly see the dust raining down,” said Mustafa Mahmoud, a grocery store owner in the Wadi al-Qamar neighborhood.

Reuters could not independently verify the claim. Titan Cement says the plant’s emissions are within legal limits, and it plans to reduce coal use in the coming years.

Like many cement manufacturers in Egypt and throughout North Africa, the factory uses imported coal to fire its kilns. Recently, more and more of the region’s coal is coming from the United States, according to US export data.

Fossil fuel exports have been a hot topic at this year’s UN climate conference in Baku, with activists and representatives from some climate-vulnerable countries arguing that nations should be held accountable for the pollution they send overseas – often to poorer developing countries. In countries – in the form of oil, gas and coal. Some are looking to include this question on the agenda of future climate summits to see how to do this.

A landmark agreement reached in Paris in 2015 to fight climate change requires countries to set targets and report on progress to reduce national levels of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. But it does not impose such requirements for emissions produced by the fossil fuels they dig up, mine and ship elsewhere.

This allows the United States, Norway, Australia and other countries to say they are making progress toward international climate goals, said Bill Hare, co-founder of Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientist. Production and export of fossil fuels are also increasing rapidly. Project that tracks government climate action.

“Most of these fossil-fuel exporting countries can look good with their domestic climate action,” he said on the sidelines of the COP29 conference in Baku this week. “Their exported emissions are someone else’s problem.”

US fossil fuel exports – which include coal, oil, gas and refined fuels – will cause more than 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions to other countries in 2022, according to calculations by Climate Action Tracker and verified using data by Reuters. Emissions equal to. International Energy Agency. The data shows this is equivalent to about a third of US domestic emissions.

A years-long drilling boom has made the US the world’s top oil and gas producer, while strong demand for four consecutive years has boosted its coal exports, according to US Energy Information Administration data.

Asked how Washington meets its climate ambitions with its fossil fuel production and exports, Ali Zaidi, climate adviser to President Joe Biden, said strong energy production is key to keeping consumer prices low during the transition to clean fuels. was required.

“I don’t think there is a social license for the decarbonization playbook to put pressure on the market to raise prices for retail consumers,” Zaidi told Reuters.

Incoming President Donald Trump, a climate change skeptic, has said he wants to further boost the country’s fossil fuel production.

For other producers, greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel exports sometimes exceed domestic emissions, Climate Action Tracker said.

This was true for Norway, Australia and Canada in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available for all countries analyzed. Reuters received exclusive access to the calculations.

Norway’s Ministry of Climate and Environment said it was up to other countries to manage their own carbon footprints.

“Each country is responsible for reducing its own emissions,” the ministry said in a statement to Reuters.

Officials at Canada’s environment and climate ministries and Australia’s ministries of environment and climate had no comment.

Addressing the summit in Azerbaijan, host President Ilham Aliyev accused some Western politicians of double standards for lecturing his government about oil and gas use, saying, “They would be better off talking about themselves.” See.”

Cement and Brick Manufacturers

According to EIA data, most US gas exports now go to European countries to reduce dependence on Russia, while China has become one of the top buyers of US crude oil and coal. However, America’s largest growth market for coal is North Africa.

US coal miners exported about 52.5 million short tons globally in the first half of 2024, up about 7% from the same period a year earlier, the data showed.

Most of the increase was driven by cement and brick makers in Egypt and Morocco, which together produced more than 5 million short tons in the period, the EIA said in a recent report.

“These customers value the higher heat content of U.S. thermal coal, which makes their manufacturing operations more efficient,” the report said.

Meanwhile, domestic coal use in the US is being reduced by cheaper natural gas and subsidies for renewable energy such as solar and wind driven by the closure of coal-fired power plants, which have led to a more than 15-year decline in greenhouse gas emissions.

Egypt’s cement industry has been dependent on imported coal for nearly a decade, as persistent natural gas shortages have forced many factories to seek alternatives, said Ahmed Shirin Korayem, vice president and board member of the Arab Union for Cement and Building Materials, a regional industry body. Have forced. ,

The US is Egypt’s biggest supplier, accounting for 3.1 million of the 6.6 million metric tons of coal imported this year, according to London Stock Exchange Group data.

Russia supplied most of the remaining 2.1 million metric tons. Its environment ministry referred questions to the foreign ministry, which did not immediately comment.

Activists argue that the Egyptian government’s decision to lift a long-standing ban on coal imports in 2015 to support an industry central to its economic development plans is harmful to the environment and health of communities like Wadi al-Qamar.

Using data from the Alexandria plant’s emissions-monitoring system, researchers from Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, Cairo University and the Environment Ministry simulated the spread of polluting dust and toxic gases between 2014 and 2020.

The study, published in the Journal of Environmental Health Science and Engineering in 2022, concluded that using coal instead of natural gas as the dominant fuel increased emissions and concentrations of total suspended particles, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide. However, concentrations were mostly within legal limits.

Egypt’s greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels rose by more than a fifth over the decade ending in 2022, adding 263 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to data from the Global Carbon Budget, a project led by Britain’s Exeter University.

Most of these emissions came from gas and oil, which remain Egypt’s main energy sources. Coal accounted for 3.4% of the 2022 total of 9 million metric tons.

The government has committed to phasing out the use of coal in 2021 and has asked companies that use it to include more renewable sources in their energy mix. But Egypt’s environment ministry spokeswoman Heba Maatouk said there was insufficient supply of alternatives, such as fuel made from flammable waste.

“If companies cannot get RDF, they will not shut down operations and will use coal to avoid losses,” Maatouk told Reuters.

legal battle

Decarbonizing the cement industry is a challenge, especially in poor developing countries like Egypt, because it requires large amounts of energy, and technologies to control emissions from the atmosphere are expensive.

In his COP29 address last week, Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly said his country’s plan to boost renewable energy to 42% of its electricity mix by 2030 depends on foreign support.

Hoda Nasrallah, a lawyer with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said residents of the Wadi al-Qamar neighborhood have been engaged in a long-running legal battle with the Alexandria Cement Factory, Sisi, filing multiple lawsuits.

According to the rights group, in 2016, community members supported by EIPR asked an administrative court in Alexandria to overturn an amendment to the country’s environmental rules that would have allowed heavy industries to use coal on health and environmental grounds. Is.

CC officials did not respond to a request for comment made through a legal representative.

Titan Cement confirmed that the factory sources coal from the US, but did not elaborate.

In a statement issued by its group corporate communications director, Lydia Yanakopoulou, the company said the plant had not violated any laws, had invested 40 million euros in pollution control since 2010, and would reduce coal use in the coming years. Planned to reduce. This increases the use of options.

He said a court-appointed committee of experts from Alexandria University concluded that the company’s emissions or operating procedures resulted in no environmental violations and that emissions were within legal limits.

Nasrallah said lawyers representing the community believe the committee was led by a company employee and have taken their case to Egypt’s highest administrative court in Cairo.

Neither party provided a copy of the committee’s report, and Reuters could not independently verify their claims.

A decision in the case is expected in December.

Meanwhile, frustration is building among nearby residents like Hisham al-Akri, who says his family has lived in Wadi al-Qamar for generations and has not been able to move there.

“This factory should not be here,” he told Reuters. “We must stop, and they must go away.”

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications to the text.