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The Ministry of Environmental Protection Submitted to the Government the Second Follow-Up Report for the Government Preparedness Plans for Climate Change
Israel's Ministry of Environmental Protection submitted its second climate change preparedness report to the government, highlighting progress and necessary.
the ministry of Environmental Protection submitted today Wednesday (31/12) to the Government the second Follow-up report for the preparation of preparedness plans for climate change in Government ministries, presenting an up-to-date status report as of December 2025. The report was prepared in accordance with Government Resolution 4079 (Hebrew) and Amendment to Resolution 1902 (Hebrew). The report examines the process of formulation and submission of the ministerial preparedness plans, their level of alignment with the Government guide, and the gaps remaining in the national preparedness for climate change.
Idit Silman, Minister of Environmental Protection: “Preparedness for climate change is a fundamental condition for the national resilience of the State of Israel. The follow-up report presents important progress in the work of the government ministries, but also emphasizes that acceleration is required in completing the plans, in deepening collaborations, and in translating the preparedness into policy, budgets, and implementation in the field. The Ministry of Environmental Protection will continue to promote the government effort for systemic, knowledge-based preparedness, for the sake of protecting the environment and future generations”.
It arises from the report that most of the ministries that submitted preparedness plans identified the areas of climate vulnerability relevant to them and began building measures to reduce risks and to cope with the effects of climate change in their areas of responsibility. However, the report points to high variance between the ministries in the level of maturity of the plans, in the detailing of schedules, in the definition of implementation and measurement mechanisms, and in the budgetary planning required for actual implementation.
The report includes professional reviews of the plans already submitted by the various government ministries, including the Ministries of Health, Agriculture, Education, Energy and Infrastructure, Construction and Housing, Transport, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and additional government bodies. Alongside this, it is noted that a number of central ministries have not yet completed the formulation and submission of the preparedness plans, a fact that creates gaps in the overall national preparedness.
With the aim of presenting a cross-cutting status report of the preparedness of government ministries for climate change, a comparative analysis was performed in the report of all preparedness plans submitted so far, based on uniform professional criteria. The analysis shows that in most ministries, the responsibility for leading the plan was defined by a senior management factor or a cross-cutting headquarters body, usually in the fields of policy, planning, and strategy, which indicates the institutionalization of the process at the organizational level. It was further found that most of the plans were formulated in partial alignment with the methodology established in the government guide, while only a limited number of plans were written in a different format or without the possibility for evaluation. In the professional aspect, most ministries based themselves on local and global climate forecasts for the purpose of identifying risks and relevant effects, and only in a few plans was a detailed reference to the subject not included.
In the applied aspects, it was found that most ministries included a preliminary budgetary estimate for preparedness measures, although the level of detail and uniformity between the plans varies, and about a third of the plans did not include a budgetary reference. In addition, about two-thirds of the plans defined internal ministerial responsibility factors for promoting the measures, and most of them included collaborations with additional government ministries, to varying extents. On the other hand, only in a few of the plans did a detailing of schedules, performance indicators, and public participation procedures appear – a datum reflecting different stages of progress in the preparedness formulation process.
The report further emphasizes the need for strengthening inter-ministerial collaborations, deepening the budgetary detailing of preparedness measures, and assimilating clear mechanisms for implementation, control, and measurement as a basis for efficient and continuous government preparedness.
Concurrently, it is noted in the report that these days an update is being performed to the government guide for writing preparedness plans, which will include additional tools for supporting government ministries and will be adapted to the draft Climate Law which is in advancement proceedings.
The Second Follow-up Report is a central tool for examining the readiness of the Government of Israel to cope with climate change. The report emphasizes that alongside real progress in identifying risks and in the beginning of preparedness processes, continued focused effort is required to complete the plans, to strengthen inter-ministerial coordination, and to turn climate preparedness into applied, budgeted, and measurable policy. The Ministry of Environmental Protection will continue to lead and accompany the government ministries in the process with the aim of maintaining the readiness of the State of Israel for climate change.
