Lebanese began cleaning beaches on Saturday after an oil spill deposited tar over large stretches of the coast in the southern part of the country.
A storm more than a week ago threw tonnes of the sticky, black substance onto beaches in neighbouring Israel, apparently after leaking from an oil tanker off the Israeli coast.
Within days the spill had spread to southern Lebanon, where clumps of tar contaminated beaches stretching from the border town of Naqura to the southern city of Tyre.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said about $14m had been earmarked to clean up the country’s shoreline, in what has been described as Israel’s biggest environmental disaster.
According to SoED, rising inequality, biodiversity loss, the growing impact of climate change and unrelenting pressure on natural resources can lead to irreversible environmental damage in the Mediterranean basin. The region is not on track to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Unless urgent and resolute action is taken to halt current trends, environmental degradation could have serious and lasting consequences for human health and livelihoods in the region.
With only one decade remaining for the implementation of the SDGs, the COVID-19 epidemic has compounded the challenges that the country must overcome to fulfill the promise that the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development represents to the Tunisian population of 11.69 million, a quarter of which are under fifteen years of age.
Responsibilities
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment. Its mandate is to coordinate the development of environmental policy consensus by keeping the global environment under review and bringing emerging issues to the attention of governments and the international community for action.
UNEP’s Ecosystems Division works with international and national partners, providing technical assistance and advisory services for the implementation of environmental policy, and strengthening the environmental management capacity of developing countries and countries with economies in transition.