Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovenia fail to submit air pollution reduction plans to EC

Half of the European Union’s 28 member states, including Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Romania, and Slovenia, had failed to prepare their air pollution reduction plans by the April 1 deadline, the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) said on its website. The other countries on this “black list” are Czechia, France, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and […]

“Transformative change” urged to tackle nature decline as one million species face extinction

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has urged “transformative change” to tackle “unprecedented” rates of nature decline and species extinction, which are now likely to have grave impacts on people around the world. A landmark report by IPBES, which examines the relationship between economic development pathways and their impacts on nature, […]

TENDERING: UNDP seeks service providers for development of SECAPs for 37 municipalities, cities in BiH

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has issued a public call for the development of Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs) for 37 municipalities and cities. The deadline to submit applications is May 20. The UNDP BiH is seeking service providers for the development of SECAPs for 37 municipalities […]

Macedonian activist wins Goldman Environmental Prize

The Goldman Environmental Foundation has announced six recipients of the 2019 Goldman Environmental Prize, the world’s foremost award for grassroots environmental activists, according to a press release from the foundation. One of the awards has for the first time gone to North Macedonia, to Ana Colovic Lesoska, who has successfully campaigned to halt international lending […]

There is no life without water, and small hydropower plants would extinguish it on Stara Planina

Aleksandar Jovanović Ćuta has been fighting against the construction of run-of-river small hydropower plants (SHPPs) on Mt. Stara Planina (the Balkan mountain range) since 2016. Growing up, Jovanović witnessed much better hydrological days of the rivers and streams of Stara Planina, which have since been hurt by climate change and investors’ plans to build SHPPs. […]

Environmental protection fee in Serbia now calculated based on pollutant emissions

The Serbian government has adopted a decree on criteria for determining activities impacting the environment based on pollutant emissions. The decree envisages calculating the environmental protection fee based on pollutant emissions instead of as a percentage of revenues. The environmental protection fee, also known as the eco tax, for legal entities and entrepreneurs is determined […]