The Lebanese Ministry of Environment in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme held an award ceremony on Thursday December 19, 2013 for eight Lebanese private institutions that have successfully audited, reported and communicated their respective Greenhouse Gas emissions. This reporting comes as response to the Minister of Environment's Decision 99/1, dated 11/4/2013, where companies used the internationally adopted Greenhouse Gas Protocol through V4 advisors to report their emissions of the year 2012.
The ceremony was graced by H.E. Mr. Nazem EL Khoury, Minister of Environment and H.E. Mr. Robert Watkins, UNDP Resident Representative in the presence of ambassadors, government representatives, and representatives of private sector.
H.E. the Minister of Environment Mr. Nazem El Khoury emphasized on the importance of building a public-private partnership where the Ministry of Environment can be a "bridge to found a new relationship with the private sector, one that we would like to see developing and blossoming, one that is based on choices and not on duties, a relationship that will help us achieve a sound environmental management that allows us to preserve our natural resources and our climate's characteristics". Minister El Khoury added that "there is no fear on Lebanon's environment as long as the private sector is seriously committed to the cause and has started to protect the environment willingly and voluntarily".
El Khoury anticipated that in the new climate change agreement post 2020, all countries including Lebanon might have to commit to emission reductions and that decision 99/1 is as preparatory tool to sustainably and regularly gather data on greenhouse gas emissions small and big private institutions in Lebanon. El Khoury concluded: "we rely on the private sector in Lebanon to excel as usual in facing challenges and difficulties, to offer the best and raise Lebanon's environmental reputation on the international level".
H.E. Mr. Robert Watkins, UNDP Resident Representative, emphasizing on the work of UNDP with the Government of Lebanon to "promote integrated policy making linking economic growth, environmental management and social equity as functions of each other", adding that UNDP's partnership with the Ministry of Environment dates to more than a decade, with climate change in particular being a priority. Watkins welcomed the private sector's proactive participation in building a Low Carbon Economy in Lebanon, ensuring that such efforts "should be maintained and multiplied, so that Lebanon becomes yet again an example in terms of progress for reducing greenhouse gas emissions while strengthening the cooperation between, and building capacity among, different ministries, institutions, the private sector, academia and community organizations on climate change".
The ceremony was closed by granting Certificates of Acknowledgments to the 8 companies for reporting their greenhouse gas emissions.
