Cairo Construction Razes Green Spaces Ahead of Climate Summit

The World Bank says “Air pollution is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, especially affecting poorer people,” costing the MENA (Middle East North Africa) region around $141 billion per year, in Cairo, August 7, 2022. (Hamada Elrasam/VOA)

Environmental lawyer Ahmed Alseidi says, “In 2019, the government started expanding its urban development projects [in the capital] without conducting environmental assessments on the impact of cutting down trees” in Cairo, July 27, 2022. (Hamada Elrasam/

In Orman Garden, near Cairo University, botany professor Rim Hamdy says, “Trees help people with rising temperatures and pollution while preserving the environmental balance by hosting birds, fungi, bacteria, insects, and invertebrate animals.” Cairo, Jul

“Let’s agree that trees are life,” says professor Hamdy. “They provide shade and shelter, purify the air, and protect us from greenhouse gases, including the harmful effects of car exhaust, smog, and extreme heat,” in Cairo, August 6, 2022. (Hamada Elrasa

In the leafy east Cairo neighborhood of Maadi, new roads and bridges threaten centuries-old trees, August 2, 2022. (Hamada Elrasam/VOA)

Most of the public garden in front of Abdeen Palace, a royal residence turned museum and presidential base, was razed last year to make way for this outdoor food court in Cairo, August 7, 2022. (Hamada Elrasam/VOA)

In recent years, Egypt has intensified its urban infrastructure campaign to combat the city’s hazardous congestion, by building its new administrative capital, a sprawling multibillion-dollar city in the desert east of Cairo, August 7, 2022. (Hamada Elras

“It’s not only about cutting down trees in one area and replanting them in another,” says Alseidi, the environmental lawyer. “Because older trees don’t rely on irrigation water like new ones do” in Cairo’s new capital, August 7, 2022. (Hamada Elrasam/VOA

“Half of humanity is in the danger zone, from floods, droughts, extreme storms, and wildfires. No nation is immune,” warned United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last month, ahead of the UN Climate summit in Egypt in November, pictured in Cair

“This 120-year-old sycamore—older than Cairo University itself—is suffering from the concrete blocks that surround its trunk,” says botany professor Hamdy in Cairo, July 26, 2022. (Hamada Elrasam/VOA)