Rare are the political parties in Lebanon, which allocates all their annual agenda to purely environmental development goals. However, it is widespread in the Western world. In Canada, the Green Party, which adopts the ecological reference, is a member of the American Federation of Green Parties. In Australia, the Australian Green Party, founded in 1992, is one of the most important parties for sustainability to leave life beautiful for future generations. In Europe, many parties are scattered in France, Germany, Finland, Switzerland and the rest of Europe, most of them bearing the name of the Green Party.
The concept of the Green Party did not begin to expand in the Arab countries until recently. Although the Egyptian Green Party and the Iraqi National Green Party were old, the oil pollution caused by the Gulf industries reached an increasing degree that led some countries to create parties calling for preserving the environment. The theme may coincide with the spread of global warming and climate change from various parts of the world, as well as their direct impact in the majority of the affected countries from floods, weather changes and extinction of animals.
The Lebanese Green Party
Environmental parties have emerged in Syria, Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon, calling for conservation of the environment. However, the representation of these parties is not more than their participation in the Ministry of the Environment, for example, contrary to Western countries, which have a number of legislators in the Councils of Representatives that are looking for a better environment for citizens.
Despite the spread of this concept in those countries, Lebanon is the only country in the Middle East that has embarked on a plan to establish a political environmental party, the Lebanese Green Party, which was established in 2008. Its main objectives are: environmental protection, sustainable development and human rights.
A Lebanese party focuses primarily on green politics. Although it started in 2008, the Lebanese Green Party declared an environmental emergency in 2009 and spread rapidly in the Middle East and Asia. After it was active in presenting the draft laws, following up on her studies and voting on them in the parliamentary committees, and succeeding in approving some of them such as the Environmental Public Prosecution Law, it succeeded in filing a lawsuit with the General Attorney against all the aggressors on public property along the Lebanese coast.
In the social sphere, the Green Party offers ideas to improve the conditions of citizenship and to give the Lebanese his initial and obvious rights before the rights of the community and the community. It also called for the building of the rule of law and a return to the institutional approach, which was undermined by the policy of private interests. In February 2016, the Lebanese Green Party entered the world after becoming an official member of the Asia Pacific Green Party Federation and a member of the World Federation of Green Parties in the world. It was the first and only member of the 12 Asian countries .
Lebanon is the only country with no parliamentary or ministerial representation for a party that adopts green policy, unlike Western countries, which have a number of legislators in the parliaments adopting a green policy and looking for a better environment for citizens.
In the Arab countries, especially in Lebanon, no ministry has seen in previous decades an activist or environmental expert in the seat of the Ministry of the Environment, along with the fact that no seat was taken in the House of Representatives by any green activist who could cut hands of political and personal interests and aimed for regional wealth of Lebanon.
But all that Lebanon has benefited from is the wrong policies that has been translated by the accumulation of waste on the roads, the spread of epidemics and diseases, the extinction of some species of birds and the legislation of the killing of gulls, pollution of the sea with oil and waste and the elimination of heritage buildings and the latest green spaces that are still registered as the front of the Green Lebanon!
The relationship is interconnected between man and the environment, and therefore the service of the environment means the provision of human service in all sectors, economic, commercial and tourism, so the participation of environmental experts in decision-making contributes in one way or another to make environmental health options leading to a better country.
This international extension of the Lebanese Green Party has become the focus of all environmental experts from around the world. Within the framework of the open policy adopted, the party hosted for three days the MP in the Australian Parliament, Green Party President Greg Barber, who thanked his hosts, and praised the wisdom and the expertise of the party’s president, Nada Zaarour, and wished her success in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Believing in what she can offer from being a woman first and head of a party that is developing very quickly.
Greenarea.me had the opportunity to meet with the MP in the Australian Parliament, Green Party President Greg Barber, who put us in general on Australia’s environmental problems, as well as the importance of Lebanese environmentalists entering politics and their ability to make a difference.
“The dilemma of global climate change does not exclude a country or a village, neither in terms of impacts nor in terms of the involvement of all in causing them,” Barber said. “Australia can not distance itself from that issue because it relies on coal as its primary source and has a lot of pollutants to the environment, and therefore is powerless because there is not much to do in this area. ”
The manifestations of climate change in this country are evident the threat of the Great Barrier Reef that has been known for thousands of years,” Barber said, “is a threat to coral reefs.
However, Barber considered that “Australia’s worst environmental problems have been the damage to the ecosystem for decades, which has a major impact on biodiversity and leads to its destruction. Australia has been classified as one of the worst affected countries in biodiversity, so that global warming transforms the weather from cold to warm, and affects the environment of many species of animals and insects that do not live in a warm environment, which leads to their extinction. ”
Environmental representation in Australia is not limited to parliament only. There are representatives of the Greens parties in various government sites and different regions. This makes the solution of environmental matters easier in the regions. Therefore, all utilities are fully concerned with addressing the causes of pollution and alleviating them at the country level in general. “He said.
The presence of representatives of environmental green parties in the Australian Parliament makes the alarm sound easier to be outside. Therefore, as far as possible, Australia is trying to mitigate environmental pollution. The Authority has adopted motivational methods that contribute in spreading awareness among people. As a simple example, “The need to encourage the adoption of the principle of recycling, through the re-consumption of bottles instead of throwing them and replacing them with money, and in the organic waste, all the remnants of food and vegetables and gardens are converted to composting and are being reused, which can lead, in his opinion, to reduce the amount of waste.
And although taxes have been put in place to reduce the amount of waste accumulated, the problem, according to Barber, has not yet been solved, so these taxes generate money for political power but in turn do not reduce the amount of waste in the country.
On the other hand, in commenting on the waste crisis in Lebanon, he compared what can be done to what happened in Australia, the big country. He pointed out that the participation of the Authority in motivating the Lebanese by certain means can be material on waste sorting in one hand and the adoption of the principle of recycling on the other. An encouraging step for the Lebanese to do what is best for them and for their country.
However, in Barbar’s view, Lebanon “needs not only technical solutions, but also the need for joint efforts of politicians and citizens.” He stressed that “cleaning roads, water and air requires political purification as well. Marks the beginning of a path towards sustainable development. ”
In this context, he stressed his support for the Lebanese Green Party to enter the political arena in the upcoming parliamentary elections by all available means, considering that the spread of this party on a large scale in the Middle East and Asia can contribute to the formulation of environmental policies for the benefit of the country from various quarters, He said that the chances are not limited to Lebanon, but that the entry of a political environmental party into the Lebanese government has positive results for the Middle East and the world as well.
