When Miki Haimovich says affably that she entered politics to promote environmental issues, I believe her. It's just that her seriousness is somewhat questionable after the first lady of the Gantz-Lapid-Nissankoren movement told Ynet that Israel's natural gas should be kept in the ground.
Why should it be left in the ground? Because it's bad for the environment (along with coal and fuel oil, she says) and also because it's possible to feed Israel's energy appetite with renewable sources. Case in point, she notes: Even Morocco is using renewable energy to provide electricity to two cities.
In an angry tone, she takes umbrage: What has been done in Israel over the past decade to advance these issues? So a bit of unsolicited advice to the new shadow environment minister for a movement counting its eggs before they've hatched: Ideology is a wonderful thing but do some thorough research before spouting off. Start with your friends on the ticket, Orit Farkash Hacohen (No. 15 on the Blue and White party's Knesset slate), the former head of the Electricity Regulatory Authority.
Farkash could tell Haimovich how delusional it is to believe that renewable sources can be the main provider of energy, at least in a reality where solar panels can efficiently convert only 20% of the 1,650 effective sunlight hours we have in a year into usable energy and a technological solution for storing excess solar energy still hasn't been found.
Moreover, the electricity industry currently produces nearly 17,000 megawatts; and if renewable energy sources only account for around 7% of the country's needs, it is only because the regulatory obstacles put in place by Farkash during her time as Electricity Authority chief – during which she prevented the government from reaching its stated objectives of 5% renewable energy by 2014 and 10% by 2020 – were bypassed. Haimovich, it turns out, is screaming bloody murder while the main obstacle to progress on renewable energy is sitting in her own party.
In all fairness, it must be noted that Farkash – a classic symbol of the bureaucratic oppression of elected representatives, which seeks to control innovation through countless bureaucratic regulations – wasn't the only roadblock on the path to "planting" solar fields across the country. Israel's Planning Administration, unlike in Morocco, must take into consideration dozens of organizations that oppose solar fields due to concerns for wildlife and wind turbines because they pose a danger to birds.
On what side of the equation will the aspiring environment minister fall – the love of animals or the desire to take their natural habitats in order to capture the wind and sun? And we haven't even discussed the IDF's needs to train on land and in the air or the importance of an untouched desert to maintain ecological balance or the Bedouin and their flocks.
Haimovich should be cheering Dr. Assaf Eilat, the new head of the Electricity Regulatory Authority, who has discarded regulations to push solar energy forward in accordance with directives issued by supervising Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz. As for the natural gas, meanwhile, it looks like her party won't reverse the progress that has already been made. The question is, what will Haimovich do with a vision for the environment that has already been nipped in the bud?
