Israeli President Isaac Herzog says climate crisis ‘keeps me awake at night’

Israeli president Isaac Herzog says the climate crisis “keeps me awake at night” amid growing public debate about the issue in his country.

Describing the climate crisis as “a fully-fledged existential threat”, President Herzog told the Haaretz and Hebrew University Israel Climate Change Conference that “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”.

He said he had vowed to use “all the means at my disposal” to confront the matter when he became president last July.

He had established the Israeli Climate Forum, and believed that its collaborations were “already showing early signs of important solutions”.

The president made it clear that there would be “dramatic: implications” for the Middle East if the challenges were not met, leading to “a genuine catastrophe” if the predictions of regional temperature rises, between 10 and 20 per cent less rainfall, and “intensification of floods and heatwaves” were fulfilled. Another “especially disturbing forecast” was that of rising sea levels.

Now he has pledged to help establish a “Renewable Middle East” because it is necessary to confront the problems on a regional basis. President Herzog intends to make climate change the focus of talks in the next month with the leaders of Greece, Cyprus and Turkey. He said: “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”.