Israel: Political Vacuum Leads to Slew of Green Laws
by Jesse Fox, Tel Aviv, Israel on 08. 2.08
The Knesset, Israel's parliament: Soon to be painted green? (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
The Israeli Knesset, perhaps the most hyperactive spot in this more-wired-than-most country, may have caught on a bit late, but it appears that the green wave washing over the country has finally reached the benches of Israel’s parliament.
Maybe it was the teetering of the governing coalition or the multi-year water crisis, or maybe it was just the sticky and oppressive summer heat. Whatever the cause, the summer session of the Knesset closed last week with an unprecedented burst of environmental legislation.
Here's a roundup of the new laws...
Laws that passed their final reading:
Clean Air Law – After years of marathon discussions, and a few influential demonstrations, a law was finally passed that regulates the emission of pollutants into the air. The law requires the government to reduce air pollution through standards, monitoring, enforcement and even leveling fines and criminal charges against heavy polluters. The law will only go into effect in 2011, but it's a safe bet that industry will begin taking it into account immediately.
Environmental Enforcement Law – Until now, only the central government had the authority to enforce a variety of environmental laws, and it also collected the associated fines from offenders. Under the new law, local authorities will now be authorized to enforce these laws, and the income they receive from the associated fines will serve as an incentive to strongly enforce environmental laws within their jurisdictions.
The Polluter Pays – Assigning an economic value to pollution has a way of getting polluters to think long and hard about cleaning up their act. This law will do just that by adding an element of economic disincentives to all of the environmental laws already on the books.
Laws that passed their preliminary readings, and must still pass a final reading in the Knesset:
Encouragement of Bike Transportation – Drawn up by a group of environmental NGO’s and supported in its first reading by a huge majority of 66-1, this law, when passed, would require the paving of bike paths, parking facilities for bikes, showers at places of work (riding to work can be a sweaty business in the Middle East), and will give bikers the right to take their bikes with them on trains, light rails and buses. The law’s sponsors believe it will contribute to reducing air pollution and traffic accidents, save highway space, improve the health of the public and, of course, protect bike riders from reckless drivers.
Reducing Use of Plastic Bags – In much of the world, disposable plastic bags have already gone out of style. The law would abolish the free plastic grocery bag, and require grocery stores to offer their customers cheap, multi-use alternatives instead.
Water and Energy Efficiency in Public Buildings – These two bills would require the installation of water- and energy-saving devices in all of Israel’s public buildings.
Water Polluters – Israel faces a serious water shortage in the near future, and this law would tighten enforcement of pollution of water sources.
In addition, laws are in the works that deal with radiation-emitting cellular antennas, greenhouse emissions, ending government subsidies for polluting factories and cleaning up polluted brownfields.
Behind almost all of the new laws stands a trio of maverick lawmakers – Dov Hanin, Michael Melchior and Ofir Pines-Paz - who have devoted their time in the Knesset to pushing the environment to the top of the agenda. May lawmakers everywhere take an example from them.
Via:: NRG (Hebrew link)
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I think Israel's enemies could take a leaf out of their book. Israel has always shown to be advanced in the way of environmental protection.
Great news this year that they also wish to convert their car fleet to electric powered by solar energy. It is in their interest to move away from oil, though it is such a pity that the rest of the world doesn't follow their lead.
In recent times a lot of countries have boasted media-fueled claims to the biggest or more productive renewable power plants among other initiatives but with this pack of actual legislation addressing all kinds of problems Israel can now effortelessly take the lead in the industrialized world.
Other small countries in similar climates could benefit from this example and are more able to quickly officially adopt the same sort of measures.
Great News!
IMPORTANT: is CO2 included in air pollution in these laws in some way?
It finally feels like things are starting to happen in the Knesset...
Israel is already a leader in green research in many, many fields and is the home of so many green start-ups (disclosure: I run one such green start-up)... But it always feels like other countries are the only ones getting the benefits of our green tech breakthroughs... A case in point is that Israel is a world leader in solar energy research, but we get all of our electricity from coal. One of the world's largest manufacture of solar plants is an Israeli firm, but they can't get the Knesset to back them up and have the Israeli Electric Company as a client. We're actually in the middle of a fight to stop them from building two new coal plants.
Hi Tal,
When Nissan/Renault made the statement this year to have an all electric fleet in Israel didn't the Israeli President give it his full backing?
I know what you mean, I live in Italy where we get almost as much sun as Israel does but we don't have the level of solar that even Germany to the north have. Crazy policies.
Mark,
I am presuming you're talking about Project Better place... Yeah, that's a huge step forward, and a huge opportunity for Israel to take the lead in moving the world to a new way of using energy.
I'm very hopeful Project Better Place will do us all proud, but it is a private venture, not a government one. The power held by Mr. Peres as president, is (as far as I understand) kind of like the power held by the Italian president... In other words, more of a ceremonial role (unlike the Israeli or Italian Prime Ministers). By the way, Mr. Peres is also supporting a few projects Israeli greenies frown upon (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/07/saving-dead-sea-becoming-quite-profitable.php)
Come next elections, things will be different :)