The Environmental Protection Ministry made 2012 emissionsdata for more than 400 factories across Israel available to the public onSunday, with the launch of its Environmental Emissions Registry project.
By means of the project, it is now possible for the publicto access emissions data from 426 factories and businesses in the industrial,agricultural, wastewater, waste and hazardous waste sectors. Publishing thisdata is in accordance with an amendment passed last year by the ministry thatrequires industries to report what pollutants their factories are releasing,the ministry explained. The launch of the project, as part of the adaptation ofthe United Nations Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTR),was also a condition for Israel’s membership in the OECD.
Members of the public can access the database on theministry’s website, through which they can sort through factories inalphabetical order or by location on a map of Israel. All reports ofcontaminant release for each company also provide explanations as to theeffects of the specific material and the degree of danger posed to humans andthe environment.
Within the first four hours of the database’s launch, theministry reported receiving seven times more visitors than usual, with about4,000 users hourly.
“One of the key goals that I am working for is to enable thepeople of Israel to breathe clean air everywhere,” said EnvironmentalProtection Minister Amir Peretz. “Transparency proves itself to be a keycomponent in the fight against polluters, and even when it comes to factoriesthat meet regulations, we intend to continue working toward reducingpollution.”
The data collected for these 426 facilities indicate thatindustries emitted 57.167 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmospherein 2012. Most of the emissions, however, are being generated in accordance withthe strict regulations established and approved by the ministry, the officeacknowledged.
Israel officially acceded to PRTR – also known as the KievProtocol – in January, approximately 10 years after the protocol was firstadopted at the Aarhus Convention.
The protocol aims “to enhance public access to informationthrough the establishment of coherent, nationwide pollutant release andtransfer registers (PRTRs),” and is the first such legally bindinginternational tool to take on this goal.
The primary reason that Israel was a relative latecomer toPRTR accession was that the country lacked domestic legislation on the subject,an issue that was eventually overcome by pushes from ministry officials and bythe OECD. Israel became an OECD member in June 2010, and by August that yearhad prepared a draft version of the country’s PRTR policy.
The internal PRTR legislation was enacted in Israel on April1, 2012, and by June 30 the ministry began collecting emissions data fromfactories all over the country.
“The struggle for clean air is not only a catchphrase,”Peretz said. “The impact on the economy and on morbidity is reaching enormousproportions, and according to ministry estimates, rising pollution levels costNIS 14.2 billion each year.”
The Israel Electric Corporation, whose power plants showedparticularly high emissions levels for the year 2012 in the ministry database,stressed in response that the levels were unusually high in 2012 due to thedisruption of the Egyptian gas supply, resulting in the need to use jet fueloil and diesel. With the arrival of gas from the Tamar reservoir in March 2013,the IEC resumed producing 50 percent of its electricity by means of the muchcleaner natural gas, the company said.
While all of the numbers used in the database were providedby the companies themselves, the IEC criticized the ministry for failing to“give a true indication of the public’s exposure to pollutant materials.”
Certain measures taken by power plants – such as higherchimneys and hot gas temperatures that disperse the pollutants – lead to asituation in which only a small fraction of the contaminants reach thepopulation, in comparison to emissions coming from vehicles, the IEC said.
The industries listed in the PRTR database may be releasing theemissions into the air, but when it comes to curbing air pollution in Israel,Peretz was perhaps most critical of the Finance Ministry. This spring, FinanceMinister Yair Lapid decided to eliminate the country’s greenhouse gas emissionsreduction program from the national budget.
“Despite budget cuts and Treasury decisions to cancel theprogram for combating pollution, we are continuing to cope with and work forthe right to breathe clean air as much as possible, but if the attitude of theTreasury on the subject – which is so critical and important – does not change,the problem will only be exacerbated,” Peretz said. “We have no intention ofhiding information from the public, and will continue to act transparently andmake accessible the information that belongs first and foremost to the public.”
