ISRAEL AT A TURNING POINT IN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

UNCLAS TEL AVIV 002201 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR OES/ENV, EEB/EPPD-JMUDGE AND NEA/AIA EPA FOR INTERNATIONAL - METCALF USDA FOR FAS/ICD/RSED AMMAN FOR ESTH - BHALLA PARIS FOR USOECD E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: SENV ENRG TBIO IS SUBJECT: ISRAEL AT A TURNING POINT IN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT Ref: (A)Tel Aviv 195 (B)Tel Aviv 613 (C)Tel Aviv 1845 ¶1. (SBU) Summary. Through sixty years of statehood, Israel has traditionally relegated environmental concerns towards the bottom of the agenda, with the predictable results. Knowledgeable observers fault the government's pre-occupation with defense and growth and reliance on short-term tactical decisions for permitting Israel's environment to degrade. Recently, however, Israeli society has been trying to address the legacy of benign neglect of its environment, evidenced by a raft of new environmental legislation passed in 2008 after several years of effort, aiming at tougher regulation and better enforcement, and the start of a serious recycling program. A number of factors account for this change of heart, including growing public environmentalism, political leaders willing to take up the issue, and several front page environmental news stories that energized both groups. NGOs believe that enforcement of the laws now approved will reverse environmental decline, and both the GOI and NGOs are asking for training to better pursue enforcement responsibilities and strengthen their capacity to act on environmental defense issues. GOI interest in upgrading its environmental performance is also generated by its desire to accede to OECD membership, which would commit Israel to certain core principles on environment and waste management. End summary. The Tyranny of Tactics -------------- ¶2. (U) The Israeli state throughout its history has always been keenly aware of the challenges posed by its desert climate and its limited agricultural resources. The ambition of its founders in 1948 to "make the desert bloom" was as much a challenge to its immigrant population as a statement of national objectives. The relationship between people and the land they inhabit was critical to the young state's leaders, as much of Israel's economy and export income at the time derived from agricultural output. In the 1960s agriculture accounted for over 30 percent of export earnings; today agriculture represents only 3.9 percent of export income. ¶3. (U) However despite such sensitivity to Israel's natural resource endowment (and the lack thereof),Israeli governments have traditionally subordinated environmental protection to security, economic productivity, and development objectives. In the rush to assure security and boost export earnings to pay for defense materiel, environmental protection was a secondary issue. When environmental concerns did become national issues, they cast nature in the role of an adversary: swamps that must be drained, land that must be irrigated, inhospitable desert to be cultivated into a productive asset. In the quest for physical and economic security, Israel opted for industry and output growth at the expense of pollution and depleted natural resources. ¶4. (U) The head of Tel Aviv University's Porter School of Environmental Studies Arie Nesher believes that GOI decisions made on environmental issues - as on most issues - have been chiefly tactical. This was understandable when the nation was young, when surviving the next war or embargo was the chief concern of the state's leadership. Such short-term thinking became the norm, Nesher believes. Israeli environmental policy continued to lack any strategic approach, any assessment of where the government wants Israel to be in 20 or 30 years in terms of its resource use, energy production, and environment. Individual decisions made to solve discrete problems resulted in a patchwork of weak regulation with many gaps. This tyranny of tactics incrementally led the country to high rates of air and water pollution, under-regulated waste dumping, and low corporate accountability for waste treatment. Turning a Corner -------------- ¶5. (U) In the 1990s, environmentally concerned Israelis recognized that they had little voice or impact on the country's policies, and organized to take action. Several citizen action groups joined together in 1990 to create the Israel Union for Environmental Defense, now the chief lobby for environmental policy. A few years later the Heschel Center for Environmental Education was created, stating in its mission that the single-minded dedication of public policy to economic growth and security had led to massive damage to Israel's physical environment and social fabric. ¶6. (U) Recognizing that the government had few persons trained in environmental studies, activists pressed Tel Aviv University to fill the gap, resulting in the creation of the Porter School of Environmental Studies, an interdisciplinary program to educate future leadership. The Porter School Director Nesher believes, ten years on, that these efforts are starting to bear fruit, citing the raft of environmental legislation recently passed by the Knesset, whose advisors include a number of graduates from the program. In 2006, the head of Life and Environment, an umbrella grouping of 95 NGOs concerned with environment and community living issues, recognized the sea-change in Israeli attitudes toward environmentalism. She wrote: "The main role of the environmental movement is to increase the involvement of the public in the decision making process on health and environmental issues. Therefore, the (Israeli) environmental movement has made a joint strategic decision to alter its position from a body that protests from outside of decision making processes, to a body that penetrates the centers of power and the places where decisions are made." The Sources of Change -------------- ¶7. (U) The rise of Israeli environmentalism derives from several sources. First, citizens are more sensitized to pollution because they encounter it more. Being slightly smaller than New Jersey in land area but holding 7.2 million people, Israel is ten times more densely populated than the United States, with 324 persons per square km compared to 31 persons per square km in the US. The population has also increased rapidly in the last 20 years, growing from 4.4 million in 1989 to 7.3 million, partly due to waves of new immigrants from Eastern Europe and Ethiopia. The urban sprawl has pushed Israelis to inhabit areas once far from the cities, in closer proximity to previous waste dumps. This has resulted in pressure for change; Tel Aviv's previous landfill, for example, is now undergoing rehabilitation as a recreation area for the densely inhabited Sharon region, and the city's waste is hauled 100 km farther south. ¶8. (U) The growth of environmentalism was also spurred by several high-profile ecological confrontations, and a growing realization of the health impact of pollution. These front-page news situations shocked Israelis into recognizing their degraded environment. In August 1997 four members of a visiting Australian sports team fell into Tel Aviv's Yarkon River and died from exposure to chemicals in the water. In 2006 air pollution made national news when a study revealed that an estimated 1,000 deaths per year in Tel Aviv are due to air pollution, twice the number attributed to auto accidents. In 2007, the planned construction of a new air force base in the Negev just a few kilometers downwind from Israel's only toxic waste treatment facility, provoked outrage from Israelis, a population where everyone has a family member or friend in the military or in the reserves. A new awareness of vulnerability to pollution in their small country has penetrated the population. ¶9. (SBU) One NGO director also credits the global climate change discussion with raising public awareness of environmental issues. In May 2008 Al Gore received the Dan David Prize at Tel Aviv University for his work on climate change. In his acceptance speech, Gore challenged Israel to take the lead in developing clean, low CO2-producing alternative energy sources. (Note: Israel signed the Kyoto Protocol and ratified it in 2004, but Israel is listed as a developing country, not bound by the emissions targets of developed countries. Although the GOI has resolved to undertake activities to reduce emissions of greenhouses gases in accordance with UNFCCC objectives, there is no national plan to do so.) A small but vocal percentage of Israelis are pressing to reduce Israel's carbon footprint; in fact, the government has supported the conversion of Israel's electric generation plants from coal to gas, a move responding to public health concerns more than climate imperatives. Towards More Aggressive Enforcement -------------- ¶10. (U) In response to mounting pressure from Israeli environmental NGOs and public demand for action, the Knesset passed a raft of new legislation during its last legislative session (noted ref C). This included Israel's first comprehensive Clean Air Act, and stronger sanctions on corporate polluters, with strengthened individual accountability. Further legislation is in the pipeline, with first or second readings of bills already completed on banning plastic bags, mandating energy and water-saving devices in public buildings, enforcing water pollution laws, and cutting government assistance to companies that pollute. ¶11. (SBU) Ministry of Environmental Protection officers participated in a State/USDA/EPA-sponsored workshop held in Istanbul on air pollution in August this year. This was part of a Middle East Peace Process (MEPP) funded multilateral program combining Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian government officials in shared resource management training. Given the border-transcending nature of land, water and air pollution in the region, further programs of this sort will be planned. GOI participants from the August air pollution workshop were keen for follow-on training. GOI officials hope to establish a databank on air pollution, but the lack of monitoring capacity in the Palestinian territories is a major impediment. This has led to the idea of a stock of mobile monitoring assets jointly used by the three governments, among other plans to assist the PA, and may be pursued with the donor community. ¶12. (SBU) GOI environment officials admit to the need for further training for its own "green police." This group of 45 persons within the inspection division faces a mounting workload as the new laws are implemented. Israel's Environment Minister admitted he was hesitant to endorse the new Clean Air Law because he had no budget to hire the score of persons needed to uphold the ministry's statutory responsibilities. In 2007, 245 smokestacks were inspected by authorities, but only 50 factories were visited and questioned about their compliance. ¶13. (U) The Israel Union for Environmental Defense has also approached the Embassy about training to enhance NGO capacity. Under Israeli law, NGOs can function as "green police" and gather evidence and prosecute legal cases against polluters. This holds the potential to greatly increase the enforcement capabilities of the country and improve implementation of legislation. The NGOs, however, claim they need guidance on the mechanics of legal enforcement, such as rules for collecting evidence and conducting observations, to be effective in this role. Such training would preferably be done in Israel. Post would welcome Washington agencies' guidance on who within the USG might be able to provide training of this nature, and what source might fund it. ¶14. (SBU) GOI concern about upgrading its environmental performance also stems from its interest in acceding to the OECD. Among the criteria that applicant countries must satisfy are environmental policy principles and practices. Management of hazardous and other wastes and controlling their transport across international boundaries are key components of these principles. A recent GOI crackdown on illegal dumping in the West Bank may partly reflect the desire to ensure the government's compliance with OECD obligations. GOI environment officials hope that close cooperation with the USG will help them acquire the experience and technology to better manage waste and pollution remediation efforts. Cunningham