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Egypt organizes 1st Go Green bike marathon
The Egyptian Environment Ministry has taken part in the first bike marathon organized within the framework of the “Go Green” Initiative which was launched earlier this year under the patronage of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi to spread environmental awareness, and hence accelerate the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Environment Minister Yasmine Foud participated in the marathon which was held under the theme of “For Achieving Sustainability in Agriculture.”
Also, representatives from the ministries of environment and agriculture participated in the event alongside a number of youths and representatives from civil society organizations and the private sector.
The 3-kilometer marathon took place on the Cairo-Alexandria desert road to encourage practicing sport for better health in addition to using such eco-friendly means of transportation in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as the world is striving for this goal to curb climate change.
At the end of the marathon, the Environment Ministry planted trees in the surroundings of the area where the marathon was held in order to underline the importance of planting trees to contain air pollution.
About the Go Green initiative:
The initiative – which is due to be implemented in several governorates – started with planting trees in Triump district in Cairo’s Heliopolis with the participation of a number of non-governmental organizations.
The Environment Ministry signed a cooperation protocol with the Higher Education Ministry to merge the environmental issues into the educational curricula.
The three-year initiative aims mainly at spreading awareness among people about the importance of changing their attitudes to save the environment.
The initiative was first mooted in 2019 and was launched after preparing needed strategy for implementing it.
The several-stage initiative is meant to address 36 environmental issues. It will raise a different slogan every month according to the issue it is addressing, like ditching plastic waste, deforestation and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
It also aims to incentivize youths to protect the environment and natural resources, especially curbing air pollution in order to attain Egypt’s strategic goal to reduce air pollution caused by solid particles by 50 percent in 2030.
Within this context, Egypt has also taken steps towards launching a bike-sharing project in March. The project will first be implemented at the Fayyoum University.
The project is the first of its kind in Egypt and its cost stands at about $ 900,000. The project is part of the Sustainable Transport Project being implemented by the Environment Ministry in tandem with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Dutch government.
About the Sustainable Transport Project
Th e Sustainable Transport Project is one of the most promising sustainable development projects that would help improve Egyptians health and curb climate change.
The project’s goal is to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of the transport sector in Egypt, while simultaneously mitigating the local environmental and other problems of increasing traffic such as deteriorated urban air quality and congestion.This can be achieved by increasing or sustaining the model share of greenhouse gas emission reducing public and non-motorized transportation options, discouraging the use of private cars and facilitating freight transportation by more energy efficient truck operations and increasing the share of cargo transported on rail and inland waterways.
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