Welcome to the Earth.Org Global Sustainability Index, where Earth.Org examines the policies and actions regarding the environment of every nation on earth. Combining the most respected global indexes on pollution, climate change, policy, energy, oceans, biodiversity we have produced an overall Global Index, which will be updated annually. This is the Global Sustainability Index scorecard for Algeria.
Due to its geographical position and climatic characteristics, Algeria is extremely vulnerable to the climate crisis. Even a small rise in temperature would result in various socio-economic problems in the country. It is predicted that rainfall events will be less frequent but more intense while droughts will be common and last longer. The country will experience a decrease in water resources, declining agricultural yields, encroaching desert and increased energy consumption for air conditioning. Therefore, although it contributes less than 0.5% of global emissions, Algeria needs to implement adaptation policies, and it is slowly doing so.
Mitigation measures that have been or will be implemented include the recovery of associated gas from oil wells, development of hybrid natural gas-solar plants, the reduction of gas flaring in energy industries, the introduction of energy efficiency in buildings and the development of solar energy.
The country also aims to increase its renewable energy and energy efficiency, including the construction of 20 000 high energy performance apartments by 2020, the labelling and promotion of household electrical equipment with low energy consumption and development of solar cooling. These measures are estimated to avoid about 40 metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2025.
- Algeria is very vulnerable to climate change, with a semi-arid to arid climate susceptible to more intense droughts.
- A number of measures are being implemented to reduce emissions, mainly coming from energy, transport and housing. However, they would only account for an insufficient 10-12% reduction.
- A renewable energy development plan has been announced that would increase renewable electricity share to 40% by 2030. If executed as intended, Algeria could reach a satisfactory status in the fight against climate change.
You might also like: Global Emissions (2016)
References:
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Biodiversity, Policy: Sachs, J., Schmidt-Traub, G., Kroll, C., Lafortune, G., Fuller, G. (2019): Sustainable Development Report 2019. New York: Bertelsmann Stiftung and Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).
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Oceans: Halpern, Benjamin S., et al. “An index to assess the health and benefits of the global ocean.” Nature 488.7413 (2012): 615-620.
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Pollution: Wendling, Z. A., Emerson, J. W., Esty, D. C., Levy, M. A., de Sherbinin, A., et al. (2018). 2018 Environmental Performance Index. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy. https://epi.yale.edu/
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Climate Change: Climate Change Performance Index; Jan Burck, Ursula Hagen, Niklas Höhne, Leonardo Nascimento, Christoph Bals, ISBN 978-3-943704-75-4, 2019
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Energy: Enerdata –World Energy Statistics – Yearbook.
World Energy Statistics
