Israel’s government isn’t taking the necessary steps to fight the climate change crisis ■ An investigation by Haaretz indicates that in the foreseeable future, the country will face dire consequences
Lee YaronI Illustrations Sharona Gonen Feb 16, 2023
At least a quarter of Israelis don’t think their government must prepare for global warming – even on a small scale – or have no opinion on the subject. This is what a survey conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute and Environmental Protection Ministry revealed, and it’s an attitude rather outwardly shared by the current government.
Instead of taking swift action to stop the climate crisis and prepare for its consequences, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sixth government is taking steps that legal scholars and environmental researchers warn will cause unprecedented damage to the battle against global warming.
Israel is warming at twice the global average rate, and the government has had this data for years.
But reality cannot be ignored, and an investigation by Haaretz using scientific reports, government data and interviews indicates that in the foreseeable future, the climate crisis will reap dire consequences for Israel.
Extremely hot days and heat waves will increase, floods and wildfires will intensify, agriculture and public health will be threatened and rising sea levels will encroach on Israel’s coastline. Here is Israel’s climate change forecast for 2050.
Heat waves will be so extreme they could not only damage Israel’s agriculture and economy – but also cause serious illness and even death.
Heat waves
The summer of 2022 was one of the hottest in Israel’s history with an average daily temperature of 27.2 degrees (80 Fahrenheit). The month of December also saw record-high temperatures. But in three decades, what we now see as heat waves will be considered cool.
According to the Israeli Meteorological Service, by mid-century, the percentage of days with temperatures of over 34 degrees Celsius (93.2 Fahrenheit) will increase by tens of points. By then, heat waves will be so extreme they could not only damage Israel’s agriculture and economy – but also cause serious illness and even death. They will be longer, increasingly intense and occur more frequently – with many areas of the country expected to see six or seven of such heat waves a year.
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Israel is warming at twice the global average rate, and the government has had this data for years. Yet in internal meetings, officials from security agencies have confirmed that they have no plan to protect Israel’s population or prevent deaths when these extreme heat waves arrive. In fact, no government ministry has such a plan. According to a report by the State Comptroller in 2021, despite government decisions that appear to be aimed at fighting the crisis, there has been little to no progress.
Instead, the National Security Council and National Emergency Authority spent months in dispute over who should be in charge of managing the crisis. It wasn’t until last July that the Defense Ministry finally agreed to add heat waves to Israel’s “threat map” – yet it will be months, perhaps even years, before relevant directives become obligatory.
High-fire risk days are supposed to jump from the current 70 per year to 80 in 2030 and a whopping 90 per year by 2060.
Wildfires and floods
Currently, thousands of fires break out in open land in Israel every year, only a small percentage of which turn into dangerous wildfires. But in the coming decades, a report by the Firefighting and Meteorological Service says Israel will see an increase in fires that pose “an immediate danger to people and property,” and are extremely difficult to put out.
A recent report by Meteorological Services investigator Yiftach Ziv shows that since 1980, the average number of high fire-risk days per year in Israel increased by a factor of 2.5 and very high fire-risk days saw a three-fold increase. Looking forward, according to Dr. Amir Givati of the Environmental Studies Department at Tel Aviv University, high-fire risk days are supposed to jump from the current 70 per year to 80 in 2030 and a whopping 90 per year by 2060.
As for rain, according to the Environmental Protection Agency and Meteorological Service, global warming has caused a decline in precipitation in Israel. In the last three decades, Israel saw a 3.4 percent decline in precipitation and in the coming decades, this is expected to increase to 24 percent less rainfall than the current annual average.
As average rainfall decreases, more torrential short rains and sudden flooding is expected. The drainage authorities are not prepared for such amounts of rain and flooding, and the government plan to manage the threat has been lying on the table for a year already. Forecasting these heavy rains hasn’t been a top priority either. A forecasting center was created after ten students died in 2018 in a flash flood in the south of Israel, though until recently the center was made up of only three students. Soon, two civil servants will join, though they’re expected to focus on forecasting the flooding of rivers and streams rather than cities and towns. Meanwhile, authorities in wealthy localities are turning to private companies to provide them with precise forecasts to protect residents, and poorer localities are left without a solution.
‘Climate change will cause changes in the development of pests and diseases – they will spread to areas where they didn’t previously exist.’
Food and agriculture
In the past year, cyclones destroyed vanilla crops in Madagascar, droughts destroyed chickpea crops in Africa and corn crops in the United States, and extreme heat destroyed India’s wheat fields. Global food-networks are already shrinking due to climate change.
In Israel, members of KANAT, the Insurance Fund for Natural Risks in Agriculture, says that the damage to Israeli agriculture has intensified over the past decade and that the fund paid 344 million shekels ($97 million) in compensation last year – twice as much as they paid ten years ago. This year, winter fruit yields, such as apricots and peaches, have already declined by tens of percentage points due to the shortage of cold days.
KANAT CEO Shmulik Turgeman says that in the next 20 to 30 years, Israeli agriculture will be much different. “That will be reflected in the types of crops, the areas and methods for crop growing. Climate change will also cause changes in the development of pests and diseases – they will spread to areas where they didn’t previously exist.”
According to the Yesodot research institute, if Israel fails to acknowledge the upheaval awaiting global food networks and doesn’t change its sources of food supply – availability of common foods such as chickpeas, sesame, soy, corn, grapes, tomatoes, oranges, bananas and watermelons will be threatened. The chairman of the Israel Agricultural Association echoed this sentiment, stressing that the government “must examine ways of maintaining food security as the supply of many crops is likely to suffer.”
Global warming is expected to lead to a substantial decline of at least 15 percent of worldwide agricultural yields by the end of the century. Yet Israel – which imports a large percentage of its food supply – has yet to adopt a suitable contingency plan.
The energy crisis created in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine changed the world energy map.
Energy
We are now in the final decade in which it’s still possible to avoid crossing the red-line of global warming – 1.5 degrees (2.6 Farenheit) – after which the damage caused by the crisis will rapidly intensify.
In order to prevent this, the world must swiftly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fully sever its dependence on oil, gas and coal. The transition to renewable energy sources is crucial to this. The energy crisis created in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine changed the world energy map. According to the International Energy Agency, renewable energy is expected to overtake coal as a primary global electricity source in 2025 and will account for 90 percent of the world’s increased capacity to produce electricity in the coming years.
Norway now produces 99 percent of its electricity from renewable energy, and the European Union registered record amounts of solar production last year – saving almost $30 billion in gas imports. The United States is also advancing an ambitious renewable energy plan. As for Israel, despite promising to produce 30 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources by the end of the decade, that number currently stands at 10 percent – a figure that only looks good in comparison to major oil producers like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
The State Comptroller found that Israel lacks a plan for its energy economy, and that long-term neglect of the power grid makes it difficult to connect it to renewable energy facilities. Moreover, the grid itself is limited in space. Another obstacle is bureaucracy. Entrepreneurs trying to set up solar energy systems are often turned away and entire regions – mainly in the periphery of the country – have no access renewable energy. The Environmental Protection Ministry estimates that Israel has the potential to produce about 40 percent of its electricity needs with solar panels within a few years, yet despite this – and the country’s abundance of sunshine – most roofs remain bare.
“Israel could have been a powerhouse of renewable energy, and at the same time prevent air pollution that causes deaths. But we’re stuck in place,” Eitan Parnass, the director general of the Green Energy Association in Israel, told Haaretz.
Studies have found that the crisis increases the risk of viruses spilling over from animals to humans.
Health and viruses
The World Health Organization describes the climate crisis as the greatest health threat to mankind, and leading medical journals point to a connection between global warming and an increase in illness and death. Studies have found that the crisis increases the risk of viruses spilling over from animals to humans, as well as the spread of contagious diseases. Malaria, for example, is expected to spread to additional parts of the world as mosquitos begin migrating to regions that are heating up.
One of the most significant health threats posed by the crisis is heat waves – which could cause heat strokes, dehydration, kidney damage, pregnancy complications, infertility, health issues in infants and a deterioration in those with existing chronic medical conditions.
For example, a Haaretz report revealed excessive levels of mortality during an extreme heat wave in May 2020. Following its publication, the Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg ordered a study be conducted on the subject – which found 363 “excess deaths” in eight heat waves between 2012 and 2020. The researchers determined that “On average, every heat wave in Israel could lead to the deaths of about 45 people.”
Nevertheless, the Health Ministry is only now examining how global warming affects Israeli’s health and has yet to prepare for the change that is preoccupying medical organizations around the world. Prof. Nadav Davidovitch of Ben Gurion University says that such neglect endangers human life: “The climate crisis profoundly affects our health as a risk factor for illness, mainly among at-risk populations, minorities, the poor and those in peripheral areas. Unfortunately this situation will only deteriorate in the coming decades. The health care system must prepare systematically, beginning with training manpower, allocating resources and constructing monitoring systems.”
Israel must prepare for its sea level to rise up to 1.2 meters by 2050.
Sea level
Endless strips of sand riddled with umbrellas, plastic chairs and rackets for beach-tennis: Israeli beaches seem like a permanent slice of nature against the country’s constantly changing urban landscape. But in about three decades, large parts of the coast are expected to disappear due to the rising sea level. Considering the rapidly melting icebergs in Antarctica and Greenland, Prof. Noga Kronfeld-Schor, the chief scientist of the Environmental Protection Ministry, estimates that Israel must prepare for a sea level increase of up to a meter (3.28 feet) by 2050.
For reference, sources say that even if sea levels were to rise just half a meter, entire coastal strips would disappear. Members of the government company for Mediterranean Coastal Cliffs Preservation say that there is “a fear for the survival of Israel’s coasts and the loss of dozens of meters [of coastline].” Coastal areas and nearby infrastructure including desalination plants and drainage systems will be threatened as extreme storms and waves of unprecedented size are expected to increase.
Following this publication, the National Security Council held an initial discussion on the subject and government bodies, including the Defense Ministry, asked the Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute to draw up an official forecast for the rise in the sea level. The institute’s prediction is worse than that of Prof. Kronfeld-Schor: Israel must prepare for its sea level to rise up to 1.2 meters by 2050.
After years of ignoring the climate crisis, the Defense Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces are finally expressing concern about the issue in government discussions. The army, for its part, is beginning to realize that a new and unfamiliar threat awaits it.
‘Military aircraft will have difficulty taking off in conditions of extreme heat, and operational activity will be affected by extreme weather more than anything else.’
Security
Dr. Shira Efron, the Defense Ministry’s climate change advisor, told Haaretz that the defense establishment has started to prepare for the climate crisis, as it understands that it presents a physical risk to the IDF and the defense establishment and fears that “in 2050 the Middle East, already the world’s most arid region, will be even hotter and drier. Heat waves will be longer and more frequent, which will affect the ability of the IDF and the security forces to train.”
Efron also says there is a fear that military aircraft “will have difficulty taking off in conditions of extreme heat, and operational activity will be affected by extreme weather more than anything else.” The IDF, according to Efron, will be forced to deal with “the effects of climate change on its personnel and its systems and will have to increasingly provide assistance during climate emergencies in the civilian arena.
What we are now familiar with, such as occasional flooding in Nahariya and snow in Jerusalem once every few years, is likely to become routine events in two and a half decades – and the same is true of heat waves causing excess mortality. It will be necessary that [military] infrastructure and weaponry be replaced with weather-resistant alternatives.”
Efron says the consequences will also affect Israel’s neighbors, specifically the Gaza Strip. “The rise in the sea level will lead to water intrusion in the coastal aquifer, which will make the water in Gaza – with its [predicted] population of 4.5 million in 2050 – 100 percent unsuitable for human consumption.”
Beyond Israel and the Palestinian territories, a worldwide refugee crisis is expected due to climate change. Efron says the prediction is that by the middle of the century, there will be “hundreds of millions of climate migrants,” and that those from Africa and the Middle East could arrive at Israel’s borders seeking asylum or a route to Europe, where they’d reach Israel’s border protection system.
“The security establishment began a bit late in comparison to its counterparts overseas, but today, it’s making a serious effort to prepare for these scenarios,” Efron added.