President Isaac Herzog spoke today at the Haaretz and Hebrew University Israel Climate Change Conference 2022 in Jerusalem. This year’s conference is being held in the wake of the COP26 summit in Glasgow and amid growing public debate in Israel about the climate crisis.

Full speech:

This is a time of emergency. The global climate crisis is only intensifying, and it is striking us with full force. Unfortunately, this is only the beginning.

This crisis keeps me awake at night. This is why when I entered the Presidency, I declared that I would use all the means at my disposal in order to confront the crisis.

I established the Israeli Climate Forum, led by former Member of Knesset Dr. Dov Khenin and managed by Dr. Zohar Berman. The forum’s many working groups meet and deliberate about the crisis, and I am pleased to inform you that the collaborations created by this forum are already showing early signs of important solutions.

I want to thank especially the Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg, and the whole team in her ministry, for their terrific cooperation. I also want to thank the Life and Environment organization. Thank you to its chairwoman, former Member of Knesset Rachel Azaria, and to all ministers and professionals and actors outside the government on board with this effort.

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Ladies and gentlemen, this challenge is neither personal, nor communal, nor national. The climate crisis is a crisis for the whole world, and we in the Middle East must understand it chiefly at the regional level, because its implications will be dramatic.

Allow me to explain. The many scientific studies addressing the Middle East, by the Chaikin Chair in Geostrategy at Haifa University, the Environmental Protection Ministry, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and many other research institutes predict in our region an average rise of 4°C in temperatures; 10-20 percent less precipitation on average; and an intensification of floods, torrential rains, and heatwaves. And one especially disturbing forecast: rising sea levels.

For anyone who does not understand what this means, let me explain: this spells a genuine catastrophe. A catastrophe for everyone, for anyone living near the sea, for inhabitants of areas that will turn into deserts, for victims of lethal floods and heatwaves. It means fears of millions of refugees uprooted from their homes in Africa and the Middle East; it means a potential crisis in Gaza; it means disasters in Cyprus, Greece, Turkey. It means grave consequences for all of us, for everyone who is blessed to call this beautiful region “home.”

This is not a future catastrophe; these are not future statistics. We are talking about the here and now. This is a fully-fledged existential threat.

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The whole world understands that this is a state of emergency. One thing is clear: we cannot confront this crisis individually, each state on its own. I believe that latent in every crisis is an opportunity, and here too, we are faced with an opportunity of historic proportions.

I am speaking of regional cooperation in the fight against climate change. To offer a twist on a familiar phrase, I believe that it is time for a “Renewable Middle East.” This is not a mere catchphrase or lip service but a paradigm based on deep analysis and conversations with leaders in our region, and also with influential actors in the region and the whole world.

Just imagine collaboration with our neighbors in the Middle East, with the next two hosts of the global climate summits: Egypt, where President el-Sisi and Environment Minister Dr. Yasmine Fouad are leading groundbreaking efforts that will reach their pinnacle when Cairo hosts COP27 this summer; and the United Arab Emirates, which as I personally witnessed during my recent visit, has become an inspirational global player in the fields of renewable energy and environmental protection, and which as we all know will host COP28.

Imagine together with them, also Jordan, Bahrain, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and more and more, and of course also our Palestinian neighbors.

And may we yet see the day when we are joined by Lebanon and Syria, where a water crisis and protracted droughts in the Syrian Damascus basin, along with a drop of up to 30 percent in the availability of potable water in Lebanon, represent a real and present threat.

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This is no dream, my friends. Because when it comes to renewable energy, this region possesses immense potential. The reality speaks for itself: let us consider the Eilat-Eilot region, an area that has become a model and an example for the whole world. It is a region of nearly 750,000 acres—about the size of Houston, Texas—that now produces renewable energy for 150% of the area’s daytime needs and is projected to produce 100% of nighttime by 2025.

We are talking about the entire area’s energy needs being met by the sun, by renewable energy. All of it! This fantastic reality is the basis of the historic agreement between Israel, Jordan, and the UAE, of water for energy, which Energy Minister Karin Elharrar signed, and it is the basis for the status that she received at the recent conference in Egypt.

Now let us do the math, scale this up, and outline a broad plan for the whole Middle East on the basis of these figures. By doing so, we will understand that this region—this arid desert of thousands of miles exposed to the fierce sun—can be a source of energy, and in fact a source of life, not only for our whole region, but also beyond—for Europe, for Asia, and for Africa.

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Ladies and gentlemen, over the next month I am going to visit our neighbors along the Mediterranean littoral—Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey—and to meet their leaders. In addition to them, I remain in close and warm contact with the leadership of Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and the Palestinian Authority. I intend to get them all on board for a regional partnership confronting the climate crisis.

The platform exists. Collaborations in diverse fields are already taking place on the ground, from the Gulf of Eilat through to desalination and joint R&D at almost every moment, all the way to biological pest control with barn owls.

Allow me to pause for a moment and tell you about the wonderful barn owl project, which unfortunately few people know about but is led in Israel by Prof. Yossi Leshem. It is a marvelous model from which we must all learn. A pair of barn owls devours up to 6,000 rodents a year and can be used for the purposes of natural pest control. Thus, what began with fourteen small nesting boxes at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu now spans 5,000 nesting boxes in Israel alone and thousands more in the whole Middle East, countries such as Jordan, Cyprus, Greece, Morocco, the Emirates, which recently joined, and of course many other neighbors.

This is further proof of how the most basic needs of the natural world and man are intertwined and create collaborations not only between animals and humans, but also between nations and states. Here is the basis for discussion, and the model: the regional challenge is shared by us all, and everyone gains from the solution. Just to understand the numbers—this imaginative initiative has reduced the use of pesticides against rodents in Israel by some 60 percent. It is not only a way to protect the environment but also a fantastic financial saving.

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Friends, in a world of interests and fears, in a world of international paranoia—global crises are the best and most important engine for partnerships. We must fight for this with all our strength and keep working until we achieve this Renewable Middle East.

The State of Israel can and must lead ground-breaking endeavors.

It is time to work together, hand-in-hand, for the sake of a better world. This is not our right; it is our duty. For as Genesis says: “work it and take care of it”—and not a second sooner. Thank you all.