There’s no such thing as a free lunch
By Kristina Cvejanov, President on Serbian Packaging Waste Recyclers Association The media recently reported that Serbia is preparing to open Chapter 27 on the environment in its accession negotiations with the European Union by the end of this year or early next year. The plan is to complete the draft negotiation platform by the end of […]
City of Belgrade in global UN initiative SE4ALL – our endeavors to make capital wealthier, healthier and economically stronger
By Miodrag Grujić, Head of Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Sources, City of Belgrade – Secretariat for Environmental Protection As a member of the City of Belgrade delegation, I have recently participated at the UN Forum Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL), held in New York, USA. Our goal was to present Belgrade’s sustainable […]
EBRD and the Green Economy Transition: a strategy for sustainable investments in Serbia
By Ana Bachurova, EBRD Energy Efficiency and Climate Change team and Daniel Berg, EBRD Director for Serbia The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) was the first international financial institution whose charter was explicitly “green” – that is, environmentally friendly. In Serbia, the EBRD investments in green projects account for more than EUR 800 […]
GIZ provides significant support to SEE countries on their EU integration path
By: Jasna Sekulović, Project Manager and Emina Durmo, Advisor for PR, Reporting and Gender Equality – GIZ project Open Regional Fund for Southeast Europe – Energy efficiency The project Strengthening Capacities for Implementing the National Energy Efficiency Action Plan Cycle, implemented by GIZ ORF-EE, has successfully supported partner countries of SEE in fulfilling their obligations under the EU legislative framework. […]
Power production and distribution companies in the Balkan region – governments still in charge
By Vladimir Spasić, energy journalist and analyst It is not just that the governments in the Balkan region do not consider selling their power utilities, but they covet buying what they sold twenty years ago, or at least buying from their neighbors. This can be illustrated by the announcement of Serbian power utility Eletkroprivreda Srbije (EPS) […]
Small is not (always) beautiful: small hydro development in the Western Balkans
By Igor Vejnović, Hydropower Policy Officer, CEE Bankwatch Network It has long been recognized that the human and environmental costs of large dams are extremely high — just recently the failure of the overflow channels at the Oroville dam, California, almost triggered a tragedy. Across the Balkans, however, instead of coming up with genuinely new ideas, […]
Arctic’s warmest year – speed of changes matches biggest pessimists forecasts
The accelerated pace Arctic ice meltdowns is hardly a surprise to the scientific community. Yet the speed of changes taking place matches the forecasts of the biggest pessimists, at the same time becoming subject of concern in the scientific circles. By Vladimir Đurđević, Institute of Meteorology, Faculty of Physics, University of Belgrade Process of the accelerated […]
Auctions for renewables: towards markets proximity
The future of support mechanisms for renewables with targeted insight towards the SEE markets and bankability point of view By Ladislav Tolmaci, Erste Group Bank AG, Leveraged and Project Finance In the recent depressed wholesale power price environment predominant on the European commodity exchanges, any investment into electricity generating technology becomes related to a question […]