Residents of the Middle East should act towards regional cooperation - opinion

I was full of hope on the evening of this day – the day before the last climate march in Israel. 

The following day was full of excitement and good energy. Since I became a climate activist, those are the moments that I came to love the most, when many people united for one cause. 

But Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel affected the entire country, and suddenly peace seemed far removed. 

Simultaneously, my fight against climate degradation seemed far removed as well. In today’s reality, I realized humanity has deeper fractures to fix.

Now, in the ninth month of the war, Israel’s face has changed, the uncertainty turned into the will to have our hostages returned; hope became the force that holds this country alive; and anger and disappointment are becoming the determination to create a better future in this land. 

Being a climate activist means I fight climate change, I speak about it and raise awareness, and call to action. However, last October’s events caught me unprepared, as something urgent like fighting climate change went down on the list of priorities. I discovered that no matter how urgent I thought climate change was, and is, more urgent things appeared. One of the hardest things, for me, was shutting down regional cooperation activity, leaving me isolated from climate activists in neighboring countries. 

Since then, my climate advocacy activities have decreased. Cooperation between people in various countries is essential to address global issues; doing it alone is not the same. It does not have the same impact, there is not the same scale of work, and the same feeling is missing as well as people’s creative perspectives. 

It is different. But how long will it last? How long will it take for us to overcome the hate and terror, and open a new page of/for peace and cooperation between people? Can we work together in the region? 

Climate change in the Middle East

The Middle East represents a region with abundant problems concerning climate change. Additionally, these circumstances open a new window of opportunities for creative solutions and cooperation between regions. For example, transferring desalinated water from the Mediterranean Sea to Lake Kinneret, rehabilitating the Jordan River basin this way, bringing back the lost biodiversity, and more importantly, water to everyone. 

That’s why it is important to remember that the climate crisis doesn’t hit one country, it hits a region in a particular way. We must be asking not only how Israel leads its climate adaptation and mitigation targets, but how all the countries of the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East can work together to face this collective challenge.

I’ve learned through my activism journey the importance of working together, and the synergy between people. All countries in the Middle East region influence each other and we cannot ignore the existence of one another. 

Every challenge holds an opportunity, and the people who live in the Middle East should act actively toward regional cooperation that will unite us around a common inspiration, making this inspiration become our day-to-day reality one day.

The writer is a climate activist who represented Israel’s youth and future generations at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh. She is an alumna of the EcoPeace Youth Water Trustees program and continues to work for climate action regionally and globally.