Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stepped up to the podium at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow earlier this month and branded Israel as the "climate innovation nation."
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In front of world leaders gathered for the COP26 UN climate summit, Bennett said that the Jewish state is "at the beginning of a revolution" and is "ready to lead the way" in solving the environmental challenge.
Setting the ambitious goals of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and phasing out coal by 2025, the premier touted the government's 100-step climate action plan and his "Green Sandbox" task force as part of a "national pivot to climate solutions."
Observers of Israel's environmental policies tell i24NEWS that the country can look to its past for assurance that it can achieve important things in the future, but also cautioned that changes will be necessary for the climate tech sector to succeed.
"Israel was founded on the grounds of climate challenges because of the whole issue of settling people here on semi-arid land with no availability of water and with a lot of sun," said Prof. Ofira Ayalon, head of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management at the University of Haifa.
"This created back in the 1940s and '50s the drive to use our innovative survival chutzpah. All these features that we have in our DNA make this country work."
For example, Israel's largest water project – the National Water Carrier – was completed in 1964, carrying water from Lake Kinneret in the north to the desert regions of the south, with about 80% for agriculture and 20% for drinking water.
The water knowledge gained in Israel's pioneering early years has resulted in the country becoming a leader in innovation and technology with drip irrigation, desalination and wastewater treatment.
Solar is another example. In 1980, the Knesset passed a law mandating the installation of solar water heaters in all new homes. Today, nearly 90% of all Israeli households use solar thermal energy to heat their water.
"If you want to frame it with the word climate tech, that's Ok. But we've been there before," Ayalon said.
"We've been there with water-tech. We've been there with energy tech. We've been there with cleantech. We've been there with agritech."
Gap between policy and implementation
While in Israel's early days, out of necessity the government accomplished major projects, recent history shows a gap between policy and implementation, according to Dr. Orr Karassin, a senior lecturer in public policy and environmental regulation at the Open University of Israel.
Calling the 15.5 billion shekel ($4.8 billion) climate action program passed recently as part of the state budget a "positive development," Karassin cautioned that when looking at the details of the plan, a lot of the steps are associated with closing gaps rather than moving forward.
A total of NIS 2.4 billion ($749 million) of the climate action plan will go toward recycling and reuse of waste, an example, according to Karassin, of how Israel is playing catch-up in the waste sector compared to other OECD countries who have implemented zero waste policies.
"Part of the budget is closing gaps from the past rather than taking big strides forward, yet it is a good sign that they are trying to do that and the fact that the budget is allocated is a good sign," Karassin said.
The political turbulence of the past few years in Israel with frequent elections is not a recipe for stable and long-term climate policies being implemented, Karassin said.
Both professors agreed that while they are pleased with the new government's vocal support for climate action as a core mission, regulatory obstacles remain to allow Israel to benefit from its own innovations as many companies find success abroad but find it difficult to establish themselves in their home country.
"If you look around to see what significant innovations in cleantech have benefited Israel you can only identify desalination plants and drip irrigation. Other than that, we see a lot of failure," Karassin said.
"Startup nation maybe, but then growth nation? Not there yet."
Bennett met with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on the sidelines of the climate summit, with the two deciding to establish a joint working group on climate innovation.
Gates praised Israel for its spirit of innovation, noting the talent in the digital realm and asking how it can be "unleashed" in the areas of climate mitigation and adaptation. The tech entrepreneur said that his foundation is looking for ways to partner with Israel on research and development.
"My big belief is that we can solve climate change if we accelerate innovation," Gates said.
In 2015, Gates founded Breakthrough Energy to invest in startup companies working to commercialize technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide renewable energy.
The head of communications told i24NEWS that talks are ongoing between Breakthrough Energy and Israel's government.
A new report on the state of Israel's climate tech sector finds that there are 637 companies developing climate technologies, representing around 10% of the high-tech firms established in the country over the past year.
The report cites regulatory barriers and securing funding as challenges to the growth of the sector.
The Israel Innovation Authority released the report in collaboration with PLANETech, a recently established joint venture of the Israel Innovation Institute and the Consensus Business Group.
From 2018 to 2020, around $3 billion was invested in climate tech startups, with around 10%, $300 million, of the funding coming from the government.
The amount of public cash infusion into these companies is too high compared to other high-tech sectors, according to Ari Siegmann, chief of staff and senior director of business development at the Israel Innovation Authority.
"One of our major challenges and opportunities is to decrease this and bring more private money into the sector with a variety of tools that we are currently trying to process," Siegmann said.
Siegmann noted that little of the money comes from dedicated climate funds, using Gates' Breakthrough Energy as an example of the kinds of outside financing that he wants to see in Israel's climate tech sector.
A national plan to boost climate tech in Israel is important, according to Siegmann, who said that he has been encouraged by what the government has been doing over the past few months and the pronouncements that came from Glasgow.
"This is the vibe in the government that is a very important vibe toward climate and climate innovation, and these are promising days ahead of us in this time," Siegmann said.
Israeli companies leading the way
Israeli companies are already at the forefront of the climate tech revolution, displaying the out-of-box thinking that turned the tiny country on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean into the startup nation.
One of these companies, Beewise, builds robotic beehives around the world to address the collapse of bee colonies due to environmental pressures – in the United States between October 2018 and April 2019, 40% of honeybee colonies died.
Bees are the world's primary pollinators and are essential for the global food supply chain.
For Beewise co-founder and CEO Saar Safra, the climate tech sector in Israel has the opportunity for massive growth because climate change is a global problem impacting the planet's 8 billion people.
"All the other industries are so crowded now that everybody is looking for a new industry that can justify investment and impact the climate. This is the classic industry that combines both," Safra told i24NEWS.
"So, you are seeing more output, basically initiatives and endeavors to fix or address climate-related issues."
An Israeli company that is actively working toward making Israel into a greener, less polluting society is ElectReon, the developer of wireless charging technology that allows for electric vehicles to juice up while driving on the road.
Last year, the company launched a wireless electric road pilot in Tel Aviv and later this month they are holding a conference on electrifying buses that will be attended by Israel's environment and transportation ministers.
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By supporting its climate tech ecosystem, the Israeli government can achieve its climate goals, Noam Ilan, VP of business development at ElectReon, told i24NEWS.
"We can deploy wired charging all over the country and turn Israel into the first country in the world with green transportation because our infrastructure can electrify entire regions or countries because it is shared and invisible," Ilan said.
"Israel should be using Israeli technologies to reduce emissions in Israel and take that to the rest of the world."
This article was first published by i24NEWS.
