The Kuwait Cabinet has approved a six-point government plan to strengthen national preparedness for potential environmental risks, improve monitoring and surveillance, speed up responses to environmental incidents, and enhance coordination among government agencies. The plan aims to strengthen environmental protection and public safety, particularly in light of current regional circumstances. The decision followed a periodic report submitted by the Ministry of Development and Sustainability Affairs on the readiness of government agencies to deal with potential environmental risks, reviewing incidents, response mechanisms, and training conducted between May 30 and July 29.
Under the first axis, all government agencies will be required to immediately notify the Public Authority for the Environment of any environmental incident and provide reports detailing its effects and the measures taken. The second axis calls for coordination with the authority to adopt and regularly update emergency plans for environmental risks, ensuring clear roles and rapid response during emergencies.
The third axis tasks the Ministry of Public Works, along with the Ministry of Health, the Public Authority for Industry, and the Public Authority for the Environment, with identifying locations where health, industrial and other waste is being discharged into rainwater and sewage networks improperly, as well as accelerating installation of smart water-quality monitoring systems at major outlets in Kuwait Bay and across the rainwater network.
The fourth axis focuses on electronic monitoring, with the Public Authority for the Environment coordinating with Kuwait Oil Company to enable real-time tracking of tankers, moving toward an integrated national system to track petroleum-product and waste tankers from source to destination. The fifth axis addresses cybersecurity, with the authority working with the National Cyber Security Center to complete integration into the Gov Shield project, protecting environmental monitoring systems from cyber threats; about 90 percent of the technical evaluation for this integration has been completed. The sixth axis involves coordinating with the Ministry of Interior’s General Directorate of Civil Defense to conduct field and office exercises covering various environmental hazards.
The report noted that 18 environmental incidents were handled through coordination among relevant authorities, with monitoring stations recording no increase in pollutant levels except for a rise in suspended particles caused by a cross-border dust wave on July 27. This six-point plan follows a June Cabinet decision assigning the Minister of State for Development and Sustainability Affairs to coordinate on environmental risks, with periodic reports to be submitted to the Cabinet every two months.
