Focused on the urgency of war, Israel lags on climate action

An atmosphere of war, political crisis and national exhaustion would seem an inauspicious time to push for more attention to climate issues in Israel.

But the forest fires which tore through the Latrun area between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem last week forcing mass evacuations were stark evidence that Israel cannot afford to be complacent about climate change.

Israel lags way behind other developed nations in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning to renewable energy, says Galit Cohen, formerly Israel’s senior environmental regulator as director-general of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and now a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies.

“We will see more and more drought and heatwaves. Until 2030 is the only open window for humanity to reduce greenhouse emissions. If not, we’ll see much more extreme climate and weather events,” says Cohen, referring to the 2030 deadline for reaching greenhouse gas reduction goals as specified in the 2016 Paris Accords.

But at present, public awareness in a country worried mostly about its many war fronts and political deterioration is also lagging behind. This means there is an absence of pressure on the government and companies to take the climate crisis seriously or push them to favor renewable energy over abundant and in the short run cheaper offshore natural gas supplies

“It’s a problem of awareness first of all,” says Cohen, who served under Tamar Zandberg of the now defunct liberal Meretz party and resigned when the far-right coalition gained power after the November 2022 elections. “The public is not aware enough of the climate crisis. There’s always a war and everyone says we don’t have time to think about climate because we have our problems.

“There isn’t enough awareness, not in the public, not in leadership and not in the private sector. They just are not there.”

Such indifference helps explain why Israel is not anywhere close to meeting its international commitments to reduce global warming emissions. A May 2023 study by the Ministry of Environmental Protection Ministry showed that Israel is set to reduce such emissions by only 12%  by 2030, way short of the 27% it had promised UN bodies dealing with climate change.

At present Israel’s finance ministry is a major part of the problem, Cohen alleges. Israel is finally deliberating over a Climate Law, but the finance ministry is working to ensure it has no teeth to rein in emissions, she says. Instead, it wants to preserve considerable state revenues from oil and gas use, she alleges. The ministry did not respond to queries for this article.

“If you look at the long term, you’ll choose a climate-aligned policy but the finance ministry looks at the short term, at the payments it gets from natural gas,” she says.

As a result of the finance ministry’s influence, the current version of the climate legislation “gives the government a lot of options to change the goals. You need goals to make sure that companies have to reduce emissions or else they will pay a lot. If there aren’t serious goals, why should the private sector invest [in renewable energy]?”

By not putting enough stress on renewable energy, Israel is harming the future of its economy as a whole, argues Cohen, and points to China, where she  led regulatory forums in China. “China invested a lot in renewable energy. They are leading the world in this. It’s an economy of the future.

“If Israel is not going to be aligned with this, it’s going to have an economy of the past, one which is less competitive and less innovative. We are not going to invent our technology, we’ll just buy it from outside.”

She disputes the idea that with war underway and people worried about regaining their balance from October 7, now  is not the time to raise environmental issues. For one thing, Cohen says, decimated kibbutzim and moshavim in the north and south can be rebuilt to have independent energy. “Food security and energy security is national security.”

Cohen is also convinced that regional conditions have become more ripe for Arab-Israeli climate and energy cooperation. This seems debatable as long as Israel backs an American-led ethnic cleansing outcome in Gaza that is strongly opposed by Arab states.

Cohen believes it is worth planning now for better days. Israel’s confrontation with Iran, and the support it received from Jordan and other countries in staving off last April’s missile attack can be built upon in the energy sphere. “We can think about renewable energy coming from those countries and about connecting the electric grids.”

The advantage of connecting grids is that when one country does not have enough electricity supply, it can draw on others, as is the case in Europe. “The supply chain for Israel as an [electricity] island is very vulnerable. If we can cooperate more with other countries, it will be less vulnerable.”

At present, Cohen is planning for climate cooperation with Saudi Arabia that could materialize if the countries normalise relations. ”This is a time to plan, to speak on the track two level. There are a lot of discussions among researchers. It’s important to keep channels open even if they are not official.”

It’s a chance for Israel to do something positive in the region, Cohen believes. “We are in the same area as the Saudis, suffering from the same climate change and Israel has something to contribute on the positive side. It isn’t just the troublemaker in the neighbourhood.

“We bring to the table technology, knowledge and expertise, for example with our water system and how we managed it. It’s not just desalinisation and wastewater management. It’s the whole system, how to price the water, how to transport it. There’s something on which to collaborate.”

Cohen predicts that a project backed by the United Arab Emirates for Jordan to supply solar energy to Israel in exchange for water, which was put on hold by the two Arab countries as Palestinian casualties surged in Gaza, will get back on track because Jordan critically needs the water.

She is far less optimistic about the US’s role in climate efforts. In addition to encouraging voices in Israel who favor fossil fuels and oppose regulation, the Trump administration’s gutting of its own Environmental Protection Agency will harm Israel because it relies on the agency for data, she says.

“With Trump and the far-right in Europe there could be all kinds of disruptions. But climate change isn’t going anywhere. It will just harm us even more if we are not prepared.”