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Israel's Environmental Protection Minister: Compliance with advanced environmental conditions is a prerequisite for Israel's accession to the OECD. Compliance with this environmental threshold will constitute a new economic growth engine for the economy, expected to provide thousands of new places of work and to significantly improve quality of life in >>Israel.Israel's Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan and Director General Dr. Yossi Inbar met OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria and OECD Director for Legal Affairs, Nicola Bonucci on January 19, 2010, within the framework of their official visit to Israel. In the meeting, OECD's Secretary General commended Israel for the significant progress made in consolidating its climate change policy, and especially its declared intention to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by the year 2020 compared to the business as usual scenario. On his part, Minister Erdan related to the environmental challenges facing Israel in achieving the target. Mr. Gurria responded that in light of the international recognition of the importance of this subject, the OECD expects and is sure that the targets will be achieved through an overall effort on the part of all relevant government ministries in such fields as accelerated energy efficiency and investments in renewable energy. In their meeting, the Secretary-General welcomed Israel's decision to prepare its first Environmental Performance Review, which will examine Israel's environmental performance and the effectiveness of its policy tools. The Review is expected to include recommendations on the expanded use of economic policy tools. Mr. Gurria offered the assistance of the OECD in helping to integrate the Organization's principles into Israel's reality. In relating to the fact that about a third of the OECD's legal instruments relate to the environment, Minister Erdan stated that "membership in the OECD will call for the cooperation of all relevant government ministries. It will obligate the integration of environmental considerations in the decision making processes of government ministries, will bring about a significant improvement in the quality of life of Israel's residents and will enable economic growth in this developing field." Secretary-General Gurria emphasized the foundation stone of the OECD's economic policy, namely "Green Growth," which is based on a deep-seated change which must find expression in government policy, as a whole, and not only in the policy of environment ministries. Environmental Protection Minister Erdan noted the wide involvement of the ministry's staffers in the activities of OECD committees and work groups on the environment.. In 2009, ministerial representatives took part in some 20 meetings, which not only helped facilitate the integration of advanced environmental standards and norms in the ministry's work, but also allowed Israel to contribute of its own experience and expertise to the OECD. In 2009, Israel successfully completed three accession reviews in the OECD Committees on environmental policy, chemicals and waste management as part of its accession process to the Organization, which should be completed during the course of 2010.
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