Sea Wall Politics: Uneven and Combined Protection of the Nile Delta Coastline in the Face of Sea Level Rise

Abstract

As global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions seem an ever more distant prospect, attention has turned to adaptation to the unavoidable impacts of climate change. On the key frontier of sea level rise, this amounts to the injunction ‘build sea walls’. But what are the implications of a scramble for coastal protection technologies? This article explores sea wall politics in one of the countries most vulnerable to sea level rise: Egypt. It is shown that protection of the Nile Delta coastline is skewed towards sunk capital and expected investments rather than poor people. This is a consequence of the neoliberal policies of the Mubarak regime and, on a more fundamental level, of uneven and combined development in Egypt. The latter process is thus undergoing an inversion and reappearing as ‘uneven and combined apocalypse’, on the threatened coastlines of Egypt and elsewhere.