By EHUD ZION WALDOKS
MK Ophir Paz-Pines (Labor), head of the Knesset Interior and Environmental Protection
Committee, sent a letter Monday to key government officials demanding that Israel put
together a policy to reduce greenhouse gases and even consider signing the Kyoto Protocol.
"Israel is not doing its part to fight global warming. We cannot present ourselves as a
first world country on the issues that are comfortable for us, and on other issues hide
behind the definition 'developing country' without an international commitment,"
Paz-Pines wrote to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and
Environment Protection Minister Gideon Ezra.
Paz-Pines was responding to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's call this week to tackle
global warming, which Ki-Moon called the "biggest challenge of our generation."
Paz-Pines will be part of a delegation to a UN conference in Indonesia next month to
discuss the Kyoto Protocol and its successor.