Iran’s strategies for curbing its greenhouse gas emissions have been outlined and were set to be presented to President Hassan Rouhani’s Cabinet by Tuesday evening.
Speaking to the press on Tuesday on the sidelines of an event intended to raise environmental awareness among students, Massoumeh Ebtekar, the head of the Department of Environment, said a dedicated team of experts had been working on the plan for months, IRNA reported.
“We need to submit our plan to the UN before the crunch climate conference in Paris in December,” she said without elaborating on the details of the plan.
Recalling the country’s high energy demand, Ebtekar, who is also a vice president, said the government is committed to moving toward clean energy and combating global warming.
Despite the obvious effects of a rapidly changing climate on Iran—prolonged drought, dwindling water resources and rising temperatures—officials have rarely spoken about climate change and Iran’s plans to curb its emissions.
With an annual emission of 712 million tons of carbon dioxide, Iran is the world’s 11th largest emitter of the gas.
According to the National Drought Warning and Monitoring Center, Iran’s northwestern, western and southwestern provinces experienced higher temperatures than average during the Iranian month ending Sept. 22, with temperatures on average 0.5 to 1 degree Celsius above normal.
