When the present Knesset and government were sworn in at the end of 2022, those of us involved in environmental policy braced ourselves for a difficult period. The coalition agreements had already carved up planning and regulatory authorities like spoils, and the environment appeared nowhere on the new government’s list of priorities. Yet even the pessimists among us did not anticipate the sheer scale of the failure.

After four years, I have searched, in good faith, for a single meaningful environmental achievement of this government. I cannot find one. What I find instead, in every domain, is retreat, neglect and capitulation.

Begin with the institution charged with defending the public’s environmental interest: the Ministry of Environmental Protection itself. Over three decades, successive governments — right and left alike — built up a cadre of committed professionals: scientists, engineers, economists and jurists who carried the institutional memory without which serious regulation is simply impossible.

Under Minister Idit Silman, that cadre has been demoralized and dispersed. Three directors-general have come and gone, two of them her own appointments. The ministry’s legal adviser departed. So did the senior deputy director-general for industry,  the head of the climate change division the head of policy and strategy, the head of environmental planning and the deputy director-general for natural resources and climate resilience — along with a long list of veteran division heads and inspectors.

Roughly one position in ten now stands vacant. Those who remain describe politicization, managerial chaos and despair. A regulatory agency stripped of its expertise and its memory cannot stand up to polluters — and the polluters know it.

Consider........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)