Photo: Aleksandar Ciric from Pixabay
The Government of Serbia said it started the public consultation process for the proposition of the strategy of low carbon development with an action plan as well as for the draft report on the strategic assessment of the impact of the proposition on the environment. Following a meeting of the cabinet’s Committee on the Economy and Finance, the announcement revealed the procedure would last until January 24 and January 27, respectively.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection called on the representatives of state institutions and organizations, public services, experts, associations, international organizations and others interested in the matter to analyze the proposition and the draft report. It is responsible for the discussions on the documents, which are available on its website.
The presentation is scheduled for January 13 in Belgrade. The statement adds the ministry would consider inputs from the participants and submit reports to the government. The decision to produce the strategic assessment of the impact of the strategy of low carbon development with the action plan was made in April of last year within a project for technical support.
In early December, international conference Renewable Energy Sources in District Heating and Cooling Systems was held in Serbia’s capital city. The messages from the event organized by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Federal Ministry of Finance of Austria, in partnership with the International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA, went in the direction of decarbonization. There is a project to install a heat pipeline between thermal power plant Nikola Tesla A in Obrenovac near Belgrade and the heating plant in New Belgrade, which should lower the quantity of fossil fuels used for heating.
That is all well and good, by all means, but when is the alarmingly harmful PM2.5 pollution going to be addressed in a proactive and responsible fashion?