Lebanon and Climate Change

Lebanon ‘has a role to play’ in combating climate change
By Christian Porth
Special to The Daily Star
Wednesday, December 12, 2007

BEIRUT: “We don’t need more conferences or reports to tell us [about climate change] anymore, but rather we need a drastic change in the lifestyles of modern human beings,” Habib Maalouf, head of the Lebanese Environment Party, told journalists at a news conference in the Movenpick Hotel in Raoche on Tuesday.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) organized the news conference to launch the 2007 Human Development Report.
The report, which has been published yearly by the UNDP since 1990, this year focused on the theme “Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World.”

Habib Maalouf, in the spirit of the theme of the report, said that “the human community is environmentally connected and we must work together to help ourselves.”

Claiming climate change to be the defining human development challenge of the 21st century, the report says that climate change is not some futuristic scenario but rather is already upon us all. The report cites as evidence the increased occurrences of destabilizing weather events, like droughts, floods and violent storms. The reluctance and weakness of human beings to cope with environmental catastrophes,” Maalouf said, “makes us see that both the developed and the developing world are affected equally.”

A senior environmental adviser to the UNDP, Iyad Abumoghli, pointed out that carbon emissions are “relatively high” in the Middle East due in part to an absence of forested areas and the significant amount waste produced in the region.

Although the United States is a leading global producer of global emissions, Abumoghli showed that based on per capita calculations, many Middle Eastern countries are also among the world’s worst polluters.
Abumoghli also highlighted data that predict a dramatic rise in the Mediterranean Sea level if greenhouse gas emission continue unabated – a development that would leave no country that borders the coast unaffected.

The UNDP report issued a challenge to all of humanity, from political and business leaders to individual citizens, to “undertake prompt and strong collective action based on shared values and a shared vision.”
“We all have a role to play in combating climate change,” said Marta Ruedas, UN resident coordinator and UNDP representative in Lebanon.

Lebanon, while not a major polluter (accounting for 0.1 percent of global emissions, according to the report), does have a say internationally, Ruedas said. She added that Lebanon’s best contribution in the fight against climate change should be international advocacy.

“Lebanon is a small country, but there is a lot for the Lebanese to do,” Ruedas said. “The United States and China need to change their climate policies, or the world impact will not be so great.”
“It’s important to put pressure on the [Lebanese] government to pressure other governments, particularly the United States, China and India, to sign environmental protocols helping to fight against climate change,” she added.

However, in Lebanon, much like most of the conflict-plagued Arab world, climate issues are rarely made a national priority. While repeatedly mentioned in Western media, environmental topics are regularly drowned out in a region where most of the news coverage is focused on politics and violence.

Roger Melki, who attended the conference as a representative of Finance Minister Jihad Azour, said “this report focuses on an issue that we are not fully aware of here in Lebanon, it hasn’t really entered our consciousness. But it is something we need to seriously address.”

Salim Khoury, director general of Henkel International, addressed the leading role that the private sector can play in fighting climate change. He urged leading members of the business community to question whether government policy includes an effective climate strategy and whether it encourages and progressive thinking.

Khoury said he believes that Lebanese companies are among the “most imaginative, most innovative, the most creative in the region.” He added that by attracting “committed young people,” local companies can provide “one of the most powerful levers today for corporate social responsibility.”

“We should all confess that it is impossible for us to achieve our dreams and ambitions by being selfish. Let us all work hand in hand to face the climate change challenges and make the difference we all aim to reach,” he concluded.

The report also includes the UNDP’s annual Human Development Index, which, “looks beyond GDP to a broader definition of well-being.” It measures three factors: “living a long and healthy life” (measured by life expectancy), “being educated” (measured by adult literacy and enrollment at the primary, secondary and tertiary level) and “having a decent standard of living” (measured by purchasing power parity and income). Lebanon ranks 88th among the 177 countries with data.