“The writing is on the wall,” State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman said on Tuesday, warning that the government has still not built a functioning national system to prepare for climate change.
The report, published on Tuesday, is Englman’s third review of Israel’s climate preparedness since 2021. It found that the government had adopted 74 climate-related decisions and allocated around NIS 8.8 billion over 18 years - but did not create a central mechanism to track whether that money was spent effectively or climate risks had been reduced.
As of January 2026, Israel still had no binding climate law, despite years of work on legislation and an agreed draft reached by the Knesset Interior and Environment Committee in late 2024.
Committee established in 2023 has still not held a single meeting
A ministerial committee on climate, established in April 2023 to improve government action, had not held a single meeting by the time of the audit.
The Environmental Protection Ministry’s Climate Change Preparedness Directorate had only two active positions as of July 2025: one permanent position and one borrowed position. It also lacked formal authority over the government ministries and public bodies expected to prepare for climate risks.
The audit found that 25 of 28 relevant ministries and public bodies had not submitted a practical climate-preparedness plan with a budget, timetable, and performance measures.
Israel also had not completed a national assessment of the long-term macroeconomic effects of climate change, despite the need to evaluate risks to infrastructure, public health, agriculture, energy, and the broader economy.
Some progress amid the stalling
The report did point to some progress, though.
The carbon tax began being applied gradually on January 1, 2025, and is expected to bring an additional NIS 7.35b. in tax revenue between 2025 and 2030 and afterward. The government also agreed to NIS 1b. in industry assistance and NIS 700m. for vulnerable populations through social-service departments in 212 local authorities.
Israel is expected to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by about 19% by 2030 - below its 27% target compared with 2015 levels.
Renewable sources accounted for 16.7% of electricity generation at the end of 2025, compared with a government target of 20%. Under current policy, Israel is expected to reach 25.2% renewable electricity by 2030, below the 30% target.
The government had also not set a renewable-energy target for 2050 by November 2025, despite a 2021 decision requiring one within a year.
A separate audit published on Tuesday in the report presented findings on the northern Dead Sea basin, which showed the practical consequences of long-term governmental delay.
The northern basin’s water level is expected to decline by around 1.15 meters annually without intervention, according to Environmental Protection Ministry estimates cited by the audit.
The government has recognized for more than two decades that it needs a policy on whether and how to stabilize the Dead Sea’s level. It again acknowledged the urgency in a 2018 decision, which required an interministerial team to submit recommendations by December 2020.
By February 2026, the team had still not completed its final report and the environmental protection minister had not brought its recommendations to the cabinet.
The team’s 2022 draft recommended intervening in the water balance to slow the decline and stabilize the Dead Sea. The audit warned that delay had a concrete cost: the longer a decision is postponed, the lower the eventual water level will be for the same investment.
The alternatives examined by the team were estimated to cost between about NIS 150m. and NIS 2.1b. annually.
The government has also failed to deliver on a seven-year-old plan to turn the northern basin into a safer tourism and development area.
Eleven of 12 tourism projects approved in 2018 had not been completed as of August 2025. Ten of those projects had a combined budget of around NIS 98m.
The planned “Gateway to the Dead Sea” visitor center, first approved in 2018, is now expected to be completed only in the second quarter of 2029.
Other projects - including accommodation facilities, public beaches, trails, tourism infrastructure, and development around Ein Gedi and the northern basin - have also stalled.
A major obstacle has been insurance. The audit found that insurance companies have refused to cover sinkhole damage and exclude it from policies offered to residents and employees in the Tamar and Megillot regional councils. Without an insurance arrangement, government bodies and local councils have not been able to establish regulated tourism routes, water activities, or safe sites for viewing sinkholes.
The lack of a solution also held up a planned public beach near Ein Gedi, despite professional approval that such a beach could be established there and a NIS 12m. budget for the beach and related lodging facilities.
Highway 90, the region’s only strategic transport route, remains vulnerable to sinkholes, stream erosion, and flooding.
Two of four projects approved to protect the road had not been completed as of April 2026, despite a NIS 107m. budget. Five of 13 stream crossings had not received a full solution, and the road continues to close on dozens of flood days each year.
Englman called on the environmental protection minister to submit the Dead Sea recommendations to the government, including a decision on intervention in the falling water level, tourism development, Road 90, and settlement growth in the area.
He also called on the Prime Minister’s Office to resume oversight of implementation.
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