Palestine and Ukraine are making their climate goals heard at Cop30 climate summit in Brazil, even as both countries face devastating wars at home.

Samer Kalbouneh, from Palestine’s Environment Quality Authority, describes participation this year is an act of resilience.

“This was not the first war, but it was the most aggressive and most brutal war,” he told The National in reference to the conflict in Gaza.

“We try our best to manage and find ways to live with the world as best as we can, because this is part of our resilience. We need to survive and live on our land forever.”

He described the destruction in Gaza and the West Bank, saying that about 90 per cent of the infrastructure has been ruined.

“The water resources are polluted and networks of water are also ruined,” he said. “The average water consumption per capita was about 80 litres per day. In Gaza, it is about 5 litres per capita per day. It is only used for drinking.”

Samer Kalbouneh from Palestine’s Environment Quality Authority at Cop30 in Belem. Nilanjana Gupta / The National

Electricity, he added, “has been rationed for the past 15 years in Gaza, but now there is no electricity at all”.

Mr Kalbouneh said daily movement restrictions also make life extremely difficult. “In the West Bank, there are more than 1,000 Israeli checkpoints that prevent people from travelling freely within their own lands,” he explained.

The restrictions, he said, have also devastated agriculture. “Many Palestinians depend on rain-fed agriculture, especially for olives in the West Bank. This year, the harvest was about 10 to 15 per cent of the average because people could not reach their land.”

A major renewable energy and water project in Gaza, funded by the Green Climate Fund, has also been lost. “It was destroyed in the first week of the war,” Mr Kalbouneh said. “The area of the land where, for example, Ireland invested $7 million in solar panels is now a place where tanks gather in Gaza.”

The environmental toll, he said, is immense.