Lebanon's Climate Change Vigil: A candle in the Dark

While the public opinion and activists all over the world are showing public expressions for the need to reach the deal in Copenhagen our Arab street are quite like a desert, only mobilised by football rivarly and religious/political discourse. This small vigil in Lebanon organised by Greenpeace is a welcome candle in the darkness of our collective environmental awareness.

Source: Daily Star

By Patrick Galey
Daily Star staff
Monday, December 14, 2009

BEIRUT: Environmental activists gathered in Downtown Beirut on Saturday as part of wider protests to mark the global action day for climate. Designed to coincide with Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s visit to Riyadh for talks with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, 10 members of Greenpeace staged a blindfolded sit-in in front of the Grand Serail, the premier’s headquarters.

The protesters held a banner depicting Hariri 11 years from now with the slogan: “Sorry, I didn’t act back then, I should have pressured Saudi Arabia.”

The blindfolding symbolized the Earth’s ambiguous future should delegates at the COP15 climate change summit – currently taking place in Copenhagen, Denmark – fail to reach a consensus on cutting global carbon emissions, Greenpeace said.

Hariri will travel to Copenhagen this week as the head of Lebanon’s delegation and Greenpeace said he should seek an active role at the summit in lobbying fellow industrialized Arab states into a drastic cut in fossil fuel usage.

Industrialized nations need to adopt a 40-percent cut in CO2 emissions by 2020, compared to 1990 levels, according to environmentalists in the Middle East. Hariri in particular should take advantage of his close ties to the oil-giant Saudi Arabia in pushing the latter to act responsibly towards climate change, Greenpeace said.

“Arab countries cannot afford denial of climate change,” said Raefa Makki, communications officer for Greenpeace in Lebanon. “We can’t force other Arab nations, for Saudi Arabia to make more profit over oil exports, into experiencing the most severe impacts of climate change.”

Lebanon is particularly vulnerable to climate change, according to the Beirut-based Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED). During a conference held in Beirut last month, delegates and environmentalists from across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) drew up a list of recommendations for all Arab states to present at the Copenhagen summit.

Required moves include taking climate change into account in all future regional development and the foundation of specialized environmental committees to advise each state on how to act in a manner that is environmentally sustainable.

As a small, coastal nation, Lebanon’s infrastructure and economy would suffer gravely should sea levels rise and temperatures continue to climb. Lebanon’s tourist industry would be severely damaged through the erosion of its beaches and create a desertification of inland areas popular with visitors.

Should global warming-inducing carbon emissions continue unabated, Lebanon and the region in general could experience dire consequences, including “severe food and water shortages leading up to epidemic illnesses” causing “hundreds of thousands of people either to be forced to emigrate or die,” Makki said.

Greenpeace welcomed Environment Minister Mohammad Rahhal’s call for Lebanon to get 12 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2012, calling such a move “a considerable leap.”

It called for Hariri to take a “serious and strong stance” toward climate change and help push industrialized countries to allocate $140 billion worth of aid to poor and developing countries to help combat the effects of climate change by adopting renewable energy.

The Copenhagen talks have been rocked by accusations that rich, oil-consuming nations are seeking to insulate themselves from severe cuts in carbon emissions. Smaller countries from the “Group of 77” have threatened to boycott any agreement that doesn’t treat developing nations fairly.

Nevertheless, Greenpeace was confident that the summit represented an opportunity to reign in carbon emissions and stave off the destructive effects of climate change.

“All the powers needed for a fair and imperative agreement are now present; the only lacking factor is the political will,” the group said in a statement.

Saturday’s Greenpeace vigil came after 200 environment activists, joined by Rahhal, gathered in Beirut on Friday, urging delegates at Copenhagen to reach a “real deal” to combat global warming.