Iran Has Not Participated in Any International Climate Agreement Under the Pretext of Sanctions

The head of Iran’s environmental organization says that implementing the commitments of the Paris Agreement is conditional on the removal of all sanctions. He made no mention of mismanagement in Iran’s environmental sector. Iran ranks seventh among global producers of greenhouse gases.

While over 40 countries at the Glasgow Conference are taking immediate action and investing to protect nature and create sustainable agricultural methods, Iran has had a passive presence at this conference and Iran’s name has not been mentioned in any of the agreements.

At this twenty-sixth international climate conference, the United States, China, Britain, India, the European Union, Australia, and 40 other countries have committed to investing in five main areas for the transition to what is called a green and sustainable economy: electricity, transportation, hydrogen, steel, and sustainable agriculture.

Ali Salajeqeh, head of Iran’s Environmental Protection Organization, told the IRNA news agency that Iran was among the first countries to join the Paris Convention. He said: “Even if Iran completes the process of joining the Paris Agreement, it will not be able to implement it because sanctions prevent international cooperation in climate matters.”

Although the Islamic Republic of Iran has joined the Paris Agreement, it has so far shirked its commitments. Even after the conclusion of the JCPOA agreement in 2015 and the release of foreign currency resources and the gradual lifting of sanctions, the Islamic Republic remained indifferent to these commitments.

Iran is a country dealing with water crises, severe droughts, deforestation, devastating floods, and the consequences of climate change, and at the same time is one of the producers of greenhouse gases, ranking seventh globally.

The Islamic Republic of Iran today links its commitments on the climate crisis to sanctions, while a large portion of the country’s climate-related problems have resulted from mismanagement by Iran’s government apparatus.

Mismanagement in the Exploitation of Natural Resources

Masoumeh Ebtekar, former Vice President and head of the Environmental Protection Organization in 2015, regarding Iran being one of the world’s largest producers of pollutants, had said: “Energy waste, high energy consumption intensity, and the energy subsidy system, energy carriers, and oil are among the most important reasons for Iran’s ranking seventh among global producers of greenhouse gases.” She added: “Unfortunately, Iran’s energy economy has not been a dynamic economy.”

According to recent statistics released by the Forests Organization of Iran, in the past 20 years, a flood has occurred every three days. This is while some provinces of the country, such as Kerman and Golestan, had not recorded a single flood in the 1960s. However, over the past 20 years, Fars, Golestan, Razavi Khorasan, Hormozgan, and Sistan and Baluchestan provinces have experienced 43 percent of the country’s total floods.

Over many years, the forests of northern Iran have been cut down and converted into pastures and animal grazing lands. Then these pastures were no longer usable, and lands that were once forests became agricultural land, and now that these lands are not even suitable for cultivation or economically viable for farmers, hectares have fallen into the hands of profiteers for building alien villas, and farmers have become villa guards and construction workers.

Alongside drought, another climate-related problem in Iran is mismanagement of water resources.

According to Mohsen Haidari, representative of Khuzestan in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, more important than drought is the mismanagement of water resources and upstream river extraction, as well as indiscriminate dam construction that plays the primary role in the drying up of the Karun River.

He added: “The government in upstream provinces, without considering Khuzestan, created dams to solve those regions’ problems, but did not grant Khuzestan any rights, even though agriculture has its own water rights; the Hawizeh Marsh also has water rights and people have the right to life, but these people did not pay attention to this issue.”

According to the latest official report by “Iran’s Water Resources Management Company,” the water reserves of this country’s dams, since the beginning of the current “water year,” given a 27 percent decrease in water inflow compared to last year, have reached less than 40 percent of their capacity.

This report states that the amount of water inflow to Iran’s dam reservoirs is 1 billion and 310 million cubic meters, whereas last year this figure was 1 billion and 800 million cubic meters.

The “water year” is a twelve-month period during which the amount of precipitation in an area is measured. The beginning of this year in Iran is calculated from the beginning of autumn and the month of Mehr and continues until the 31st of Shahrivar of the following year.

According to this report, the total water reserves of this country’s dams have reached only 18 billion cubic meters, which given their capacity of 50 billion and 500 million cubic meters means 64 percent of this capacity is empty and only 36 percent is full.

The World Bank has warned that the Middle East and North Africa, including the most important regions of the world, will be affected by climate change and rising air temperatures over the next half century. This region has always been one of the world’s dry and water-scarce regions throughout history, and agriculture in this region depends heavily on water, but climate change will intensify the crisis in the Middle East and North Africa.