Changing the Political Calculus for Climate Change in Israel
Israel’s national energy policy is only now beginning to meet the challenge of global warming. During the 1970s the country had one of the most progressive energy programs in the world. New houses were required to install solar water heaters on all new buildings. (Today, this law is still in place, and some estimates credit it with reducing national energy consumption by 3%). Solar power plants in Southern California have relied on clean-energy technology developed in Jerusalem. Additionally, the Israeli corporation Ormat has emerged as a world leader in “geothermal” energy technologies. But Israel’s Electric Company, a government-owned corporation that enjoys a monopoly on power generation, has not been impressed, and as a result Ormat has never produced a single watt of energy in Israel.
Ironically, Israel could enjoy significant economic benefits from the international system of carbon trading -- if only its allies in America would ratify the Kyoto Protocol of which it is a part. While Israel's own GHG emission reduction capabilities may be limited by a number of factors, its ability to sell carbon credits are not.
First, the Ministry of Environment has established a “Designated National Authority” (DNA) to assist Israeli entrepreneurs in proposing emission reduction projects. These projects can later be sold as carbon credits to developed countries and the emerging independent greenhouse gas markets in Europe, Canada, and Japan. Israel has been happy to take on this role, submitting fifteen projects to the DNA for review in areas such as waste management, clean energy, and agricultural initiatives. Recently, the United Nations approved wind farm expansion as a formal CDM project. The Ministry of Environmental Protection estimates that these projects could reduce up to 2 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year. Many millions of tons more are waiting as “low hanging fruit” in additional projects. The Ministry of Environment has begun promoting Israel as a good climate change investment, describing the country as follows:
Categorized as a non-Annex I country under the Convention, but with the advantages of a developed country, it offers favorable conditions for the implementation of CDM projects with minimal risk in a wide variety of subjects.
A second positive “green” development can be found within Israel’s policies regarding trees. The Jewish National Fund has planted over 240 million trees during the country’s fifty-nine years of existence. The trees’ sequestration of carbon and release of oxygen surely improves the atmospheric balance for the better, particularly in arid regions where there was no previous vegetation. Recently, the JNF’s Land Development Authority committee passed a resolution that requires the organization’s new five-year afforestation plan to make carbon sequestration a major component in its national strategy. In a modern twist on an old Jewish impulse, a carbon calculator will so go on line which will enable people around the world to estimate their personal greenhouse gas emissions and go “carbon neutral” by planting trees in the Holy Land.
Unfortunately, the potential economic benefits of CDM and carbon sequestration initiatives seem, as yet, unknown to much of Israel’s political leadership. In February 2007, for example, Minister of Infrastructure Benyamin Ben-Eliezer announced Israel’s intention to pursue a tender for a 250 MW solar power station to be located on 400 hectares of land in the Negev. Ben-Eliezer emphasized a long list of advantages to the project, including the importance of reduced dependence on oil imports, improving the balance of trade, strengthening local technologies, and reducing air pollution. Neither reducing global warming nor obtaining the benefits of carbon trading were mentioned.
Like it or not, Israel and its supporters must face the reality and the climatic vicissitudes that the future holds. Israel is part of this global problem, and the sooner adjustments are made and technologies prepared, the less traumatic a transition is likely to be. Yet even if Israel does its share, global warming is primed to affect Israeli life dramatically. Emissions released in places far across the sea, including by Israel's friends in America, will alter Israel’s land, its plants and animals, its weather, and its people.
Professor Alon Tal teaches in the Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology at the Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research of Ben Gurion University. He founded the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in 1996 and was awarded the Charles Bronfman Prize in 2006.