Not Yet a Renewable Light Unto the Nations

By Yosef Israel Abramowitz

When Kamala Harris was first considering a presidential run, she and her husband Doug came on a private visit to Israel, and we were privileged to host them for Shabbat dinner in our home in Jerusalem. I was very impressed with her, including her commitment to fighting climate change. She asked my opinion on what we have learned in Israel about renewables and what percentage of our energy could be supplied with green power.

I surprised her with my answer: 100%. And very quickly.

“The first region in the world that will be 100% solar-powered during the day by 2020 will be from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea,” I explained. “And by 2025, it will be night and day.”

This was an eye-opener and helped plant the seeds of the Biden-Harris Administration’s ambitious renewables goals, which are 50% by 2030 and 100% by 2035, which would be a revolution.

The good news is that because of what we have been able to achieve in the south of Israel with solar energy, there is hope for humanity and the climate. The bad news is that despite the leading example of the Eilat and Arava region, Israel is a bad actor, I’m sorry to say, when it comes to implementation on a national level.

True, we are #1 in the world for solar thermal hot water heaters on our rooftops, and because of their proximity to Israel, the Palestinian Authority is actually #2! But when it comes to clean energy, American fossil fuel companies, like Chevron, and the polluting politics that come with their big money, have distorted the energy policies of the Jewish state.

What is remarkable is that Theodor Herzl, the founding father of the Zionist movement, imagined his future state would be powered by 100% green energy and that all the cars would be electric.

Currently, only about 8% of Israel’s power is green energy, the lowest in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Where Israel does lead is not only with solar hot water and hitting 100% solar in one region, but also in climate technologies that can bring solutions from Zion to global challenges. The production of red meat is one of the most serious contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, and Israel is bursting with alternative protein start-ups— some even generating red meat from cells in the laboratory. Energy storage—taking solar energy during the day and saving it for nighttime use—is the next major challenge, and another Israeli start-up is using compressed air underground to store energy and release it at night to turn a turbine to produce energy. Solar-powered robots are cleaning the solar fields of the Arava Power Company and without water. And I have been privileged to lead a team that has taken the positive solar example from the Arava and interconnected solar fields in Rwanda and Burundi in Africa, and we are seeking additional partners so we can scale these made-in-Israel solutions to another dozen African countries.

While Prime Minister Naftali Bennet didn’t use his platform at the United Nations Climate Summit in Glasgow in November 2021 to increase Israel’s renewables goals, he did promise to support climate-tech in Israel so that we can play an increased innovative role in fighting climate change worldwide. But first, he has to get his burning house in order when it comes to climate and renewables. Those of us in Israel fighting the climate battle hope that world Jewry will ask the State of Israel to adopt the ambitious White House goals on renewables—50% by 2030 and 100% by 2025. Those goals, after all, do have their genesis in the inspiration from the Arava and around a shabbat table in Jerusalem.

Yosef Israel Abramowitz is Israel’s leading solar pioneer and serves as CEO of Energiya Global Capital, an impact investment platform to develop solar fields in Africa. He was nominated by 12 African countries for the Nobel Peace Prize for his solar work. Yossi can be followed

@KaptainSunshine