Summer in Egypt was so hot this year that the managers of a 40-hectare orchard in the Nile Delta had to wrap each fruit on its mango trees with paper to shield them from the heat.
They also coated the orchard's oranges with kaolin, a type of clay, in the agricultural equivalent of applying sunblock to humans, said Laila Aly, one of the orchard's managers and a German-trained agronomist.
A spray system was also installed to cool the trees on particularly hot days in a summer now labelled by scientists as the hottest on record, she told The National.
Now in mid-November, summer and its unforgiving near-daily temperatures of 40ºC and above should be long gone.
Not quite.
Temperatures have remained at 30ºC and above since October, nearly 10ºC above the norm for this time of year five decades ago – and even more recently.
With cooler weather nowhere in sight, T-shirts and light cotton are still the clothing of choice. The whirr of air conditioners is still constant in Cairo, where the population density and air pollution make even a moderately hot day feel much hotter.
With the hotter weather comes higher-than-usual demand on the electricity grid, forcing the government to reintroduce daily power cuts lasting an average of two hours to reduce the load.
Experts say the higher temperatures are an effect of climate change that has caused extreme weather, deadly floods, wildfires, sandstorms and coastal erosion in countries around the world.
Although the impact on Egypt is unlikely to be cited alongside the risks faced by low-lying Pacific and Indian Ocean islands at the Cop28 climate summit in the UAE later this month, the danger posed to the Arab world's most populous nation is both imminent and serious.
How temperatures and rainfall have changed in Egypt - 1901-2020
The mostly desert nation, whose 105 million people live on less than 10 per cent of its land, is ranked among the driest countries on the planet. Much of its $90 billion annual import bill is spent on food.
Now, rising sea levels caused by climate change is not only eroding its Mediterranean coastline but also causing the rapid salination of the fertile farmlands in the Nile Delta – the nation's bread basket.
At the same time, hotter and longer summers are raising costs and reducing yields for food growers, which has a knock-on effect on consumers already struggling with record levels of inflation amid an economic crisis.
“Climate change mitigation is costly and labour intensive but must be done for our business to survive,” said Ms Aly of the Nile Delta orchard.
“The additional expense goes on top of the sharp increase in production costs as a result of the Egyptian pound's significant loss of value against the dollar since last year,” she added.
Prominent climate change and farming expert Waleed Ramadan said Egypt's prolonged summers are already taking a heavy toll on food production, reducing harvests and disrupting the normal cycle for growing crops.
Both mean higher domestic retail prices for vegetables and fruits, he told The National.
“What used to be grown only in southern Egypt, where it's hotter than the rest of the country, is now being grown in the north. And the crops that are normally grown in September or October are now put back to November and December when the weather is cooler,” he said.
“When the productivity is down, what's available on local markets becomes less and that pushes prices up,” he said. “And it's because of the hot weather that your export season for a fruit like strawberries is stretched to May and June and not ending in March as it once did.
“That puts us at a disadvantage because it means our strawberries go head to head against better quality strawberries from places like Morocco and Spain.”
Nagy Salim, an agronomist and a farmer from Assiut in southern Egypt, already has his own climate change disaster story.
This year, nearly 75 per cent of his mangoes were so scorched by the summer heat that he had to sell them at a huge discount, he said.
“It's climate change. But here in southern Egypt, we cannot afford to cover the fruits in paper or spray them to protect them from the heat,” Mr Salim, who offers his expertise to large-scale farmers, told The National.
He also complained about a reduction in the yield of other crops he grows, as well as higher-than-usual water consumption by his crops because of the excessive and prolonged heat.
Back in northern Egypt, Mohammed El Beltagy said climate change was affecting his family's fruit and vegetable export business.
The family's 1,200-hectare farm north-west of Cairo mainly supplies supermarket chains in Britain, the Netherlands and Germany.
“The heat is forcing us to delay planting crops and is reducing our productivity,” Mr El Beltagy told The National.
“You can no longer make accurate forecasts because of climate change. In fact, the very act of trying to make weather predictions has become very difficult. That's a problem.”
Jetour T1 specs
Engine: 2-litre turbocharged
Power: 254hp
Torque: 390Nm
Price: From Dh126,000
Available: Now
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The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
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Votes
Total votes: 1.8 million
Ashraf Ghani: 923,592 votes
Abdullah Abdullah: 720,841 votes
Scores:
Day 4
England 290 & 346
Sri Lanka 336 & 226-7 (target 301)
Sri Lanka require another 75 runs with three wickets remaining
THE SPECS
BMW X7 xDrive 50i
Engine: 4.4-litre V8
Transmission: Eight-speed Steptronic transmission
Power: 462hp
Torque: 650Nm
Price: Dh600,000
Lexus LX700h specs
Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor
Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh590,000
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
At a glance - Zayed Sustainability Prize 2020
Launched: 2008
Categories: Health, energy, water, food, global high schools
Prize: Dh2.2 million (Dh360,000 for global high schools category)
Winners’ announcement: Monday, January 13
Impact in numbers
335 million people positively impacted by projects
430,000 jobs created
10 million people given access to clean and affordable drinking water
50 million homes powered by renewable energy
6.5 billion litres of water saved
26 million school children given solar lighting
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Zayed Sustainability Prize
Scoreline
Swansea 2
Grimes 20' (pen), Celina, 29'
Man City 3
Silva 69', Nordfeldt 78' (og), Aguero 88'
Off-roading in the UAE: How to checklist
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League quarter-final, second leg (first-leg score):
Manchester City (0) v Tottenham Hotspur (1), Wednesday, 11pm UAE
Match is on BeIN Sports
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MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
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AUSTRALIA SQUAD
Aaron Finch (captain), Ashton Agar, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Glenn Maxwell, Ben McDermott, Kane Richardson, Steve Smith, Billy Stanlake, Mitchell Starc, Ashton Turner, Andrew Tye, David Warner, Adam Zampa
The chef's advice
Troy Payne, head chef at Abu Dhabi’s newest healthy eatery Sanderson’s in Al Seef Resort & Spa, says singles need to change their mindset about how they approach the supermarket.
“They feel like they can’t buy one cucumber,” he says. “But I can walk into a shop – I feed two people at home – and I’ll walk into a shop and I buy one cucumber, I’ll buy one onion.”
Mr Payne asks for the sticker to be placed directly on each item, rather than face the temptation of filling one of the two-kilogram capacity plastic bags on offer.
The chef also advises singletons not get too hung up on “organic”, particularly high-priced varieties that have been flown in from far-flung locales. Local produce is often grown sustainably, and far cheaper, he says.
SPAIN SQUAD
Goalkeepers Simon (Athletic Bilbao), De Gea (Manchester United), Sanchez (Brighton)
Defenders Gaya (Valencia), Alba (Barcelona), P Torres (Villarreal), Laporte (Manchester City), Garcia (Manchester City), D Llorente (Leeds), Azpilicueta (Chelsea)
Midfielders Busquets (Barcelona), Rodri (Manchester City), Pedri (Barcelona), Thiago (Liverpool), Koke (Atletico Madrid), Ruiz (Napoli), M Llorente (Atletico Madrid)
Forwards: Olmo (RB Leipzig), Oyarzabal (Real Sociedad), Morata (Juventus), Moreno (Villarreal), F Torres (Manchester City), Traore (Wolves), Sarabia (PSG)
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Results
2pm Handicap (PA) Dh85,000 1,800m
Winner AF Al Baher, Tadhg O’Shea (jockey), Ernst Oertel (trainer).
2.30pm Maiden (TB) Dh75,000 1,400m
Winner Alla Mahlak, Fabrice Veron, Rashed Bouresly.
3pm Handicap (TB) Dh80,000 1,400m
Winner Davy Lamp, Adrie de Vries, Rashed Bouresly.
3.30pm Handicap (TB) Dh105,000 1,400m
Winner Ode To Autumn, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar.
4pm Handicap (TB) Dh80,000 1,950m
Winner Arch Gold, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson.
4.30pm Maiden (TB) Dh75,000 1,800m
Winner Meqdam, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson.
5pm Handicap (TB) Dh90,000 1,800m
Winner Native Appeal, Sam Hitchcott, Doug Watson.
5.30pm Maiden (TB) Dh75,000 1,400m
Winner Amani Pico, Tadhg O’Shea, Satish Seemar
Read more about the coronavirus
THE SPECS
Engine: 1.5-litre
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Power: 110 horsepower
Torque: 147Nm
Price: From Dh59,700
On sale: now
