The CEO of "Life and Environment" calls on the Prime Minister to enforce the government's policy on the ministries that ignore it. * A poignant report on the 2007 state budget by the "Ways to Sustainability" coalition: the ministries save a little money - and lose big
The government is ignoring principled decisions it made in the past, thereby causing huge losses to the economy and damage to public health on a large scale. The "Ways to Sustainability" coalition - a coalition of environmental and social organizations in Israel, publishes an incisive report that analyzes the economic policy and the state budget for 2007. The report reveals that in most government ministries, statements about sustainable development and protection of the environment have no practical expression in the budget.
Attorney Alona Shafer (Karo), CEO of "Haim and Environment" - the umbrella organization of environmental organizations in Israel, today called on the Prime Minister to act immediately to implement the government's decisions, which are intended to promote sustainable development, protect public health and also save the economy billions shekels According to Attorney Shafer "at a time when the entire world is investing considerable resources in the field of environmental quality and non-polluting energy, the government is short-sighted and short-sighted, ignoring the decisions it made in the past, and causing serious damage to public health and natural resources."
The report was presented today (December 6) at a press conference in Tel Aviv, with the participation of the CEO of "Haim and Environment" and the representatives of the organizations that are members of the "Pathways to Sustainability" coalition. The report analyzes the economic policy and the activities of the government ministries to promote sustainable development, as they are reflected in the state budget proposal for 2007.
Government ministries prefer savings in the immediate term over significant profit in the longer term:
1. Energy consumption in the economy can be reduced by at least 20%. The savings potential amounts to NIS 4-5 billion per year, and another close to NIS 2.24 billion will be saved in pollution and morbidity costs. However, in the last seven years, an average of NIS XNUMX million per year has been allocated to programs to optimize the use of energy, and only about a quarter of this amount has actually been used.
2. The expected savings for the economy from switching to clean energy can reach NIS 9 billion within twenty years. Despite this, only about NIS 2 million is allocated to promote the issue in 2007, and in recent years the budget has decreased by 50%. The government's decision to reach a rate of 2% in the use of renewable energies in 2007 remained only on paper, and Israel continues to rely on polluting energies such as coal, and ignores the loss to the state economy of 4.3 billion NIS per year from the costs of morbidity and mortality resulting from air pollution.
3. Also on the essential issue of saving water, budgeting is minimal, and existing budgets are cut or not used:
1) The budgets for the development of water sources have decreased by 45% in the last four years.
2) The state does not finance the installation of water heaters in all Israeli homes, which are a long-term investment - the cost is about 180 million NIS, but the savings are expected to reach 375 million NIS.
3) The budget for the water streamlining and saving program was NIS 2006 million in 13.7, but was cut in November of this year to NIS 3.9 million, of which only NIS 108,000 was used in the meantime. The budget for informational activities for water saving has been in the last two years at about half a million NIS per year on average.
Government ministries spread statements without budgetary coverage:
The government ignores the policy it adopted in its May 2003 decision to promote sustainable development, and does not budget for its practical aspects. In most government ministries, the issue remains at the theoretical level and without budgetary expression:
1. The Ministry of Construction and Housing has a strategic plan for sustainable development, but in practice there is no reference to this in the ministry's budget, and there are no appropriate budgets for key issues. The investment in the rehabilitation and strengthening of old neighborhoods has decreased by 75% in the last seven years, alongside a lack of sufficient involvement in regulation and setting standards for the quality of construction and in the introduction of advanced and cost-effective construction technologies.
2. In the Office of the Ministry of Tourism, sustainable development is not included in the strategic concept, and the environmental issue does not appear in the budget proposal. Even when there is progress, such as the law conditioning government grants to industrial plants on meeting environmental threshold conditions, details and monitoring of the grant funds under this restriction are not specified.
The government encourages trends contrary to the policy of sustainable development:
1. Fuel consumption in transportation can be reduced by about 20%, if the government encourages standardization, taxation measures and updates in the salary system. In practice, the government continues to encourage the use of private vehicles by paying vehicle maintenance and continuing to provide tax benefits through the reduced value of use of leasing vehicles. The government also does not allocate budgets
2. The Israel Land Administration acts in contradiction to sustainable development, increases the pace of land marketing, markets unplanned land and treats planning factors as barriers that limit land marketing that must be removed. The administration also continues the discrimination of the urban sector by providing land discounts for residences outside the cities amounting to NIS 268 million in the 2007 budget.
3. In the years 2000-2006, the Ministry of Environmental Protection used less than 60% of the budget allocated to it, and its operating budget is on a downward trend in these years.
The report also shows that the public's basic rights to representation and information are not preserved. The most prominent in this matter is, of course, the Settlements Law, which does not allow individual discussion of each of its issues and prevents adequate safeguarding of the public interest.
The report notes that there was also some progress in sustainable development issues, including the adoption of TMA 35, which defines the rate of development of the State of Israel until 2020, and outlines directions of action for the expansion of construction in the country; Implementation of environmental parameters in the feasibility test of transportation projects; and a large investment in the development of rail transport. However, these points of light only highlight the fact that these are isolated cases in the face of a lack of a comprehensive and binding policy that finds its expression in a budgetary commitment alongside a declaratory commitment. Regarding the railway, it turned out that even when a big and important step is taken, its continuation is not guaranteed, because for the year 2007-2008 at least a third of the railway's development plan was frozen.
