The economic viability of coal is ever decreasing. Without public financial support many coal investments are doomed to fail. Yet several institutions are still willing to finance an energy source that wrecks our climate, damages our health and wastes our money.
To help bring about a world beyond coal, we investigate and promote a socially responsible transition while exposing the economic, legal, social and environmental risks of coal power.
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We provide updates in English from the Balkans and other coal regions.
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Just transition
No one should be left behind when we reconstruct our world into one driven by clean energy. Working on just transition brings all actors who believe in fair regional redevelopment to the same table: unions, industry, public administration, governments, civil society and others sharing this goal.
Coal projects
Rovinari unit 7, Romania
The Romanian Government has been negotiating for several years with the Chinese Government to build a new 600 MW unit at the lignite power plant in Rovinari, Gorj County. The new unit would be built on the site of Units 1 and 2, currently decommissioned. A new up and running plant would pollute the whole region for at least 40 more years, a coal plant’s average lifespan.
Gacko II, Bosnia and Herzegovina
State-owned utility Elektroprivreda Republike Srpske, together with China Machinery and Engineering Corporation (CMEC) and Emerging Markets Power Fund, plans to build a new 350 MW lignite power plant in Gacko, near the town’s existing plant, and in December 2017 a Memorandum of Understanding was signed to move the project forward.
Kamengrad lignite power plant, Bosnia-Herzegovina
An idea to build a power plant at the open-cast Kamengrad coal mine near Sanski Most in the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina has been around for years, but in 2017 it took a step forward with the November signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Energy China International and the Bosnia-Herzegovina construction supplier Lager d.o.o. for a 2 X 215 MW plant.
Latest news
Corporate loans – the rotten apple in EBRD’s Environmental and Social Policy?
Blog entry | 18 April, 2019As the Board of Directors is expected to vote any day now on the renewed Policy which lays out the conditions for reaching the Bank’s sustainability mandate and commitment to EU standards, a compliance review on Serbia’s energy company’s corporate restructuring loan calls for clearer and stronger safeguards for corporate level loans.
Read moreCroatian NGOs file court case to prevent resurrection of Plomin 1 coal plant
Campaign update | 9 April, 2019Zelena akcija/Friends of the Earth Croatia and Green Istria have filed a court case challenging the decision to extend the Plomin 1 coal power plant’s environmental permit, it was announced today.
Read moreEU-China summit an opportunity to tackle Chinese support for coal in southeast Europe
Press release | 8 April, 2019Brussels – With the EU-China summit kicking off in Brussels on April 9, Bankwatch launches a new analysis [1] showing 3.5 GW of new coal may be built in southeast Europe with Chinese support, including in EU member states Romania and Greece.
Read moreRelated publications
Towards a just transition for the Upper Nitra region
Briefing | 24 January, 2019 | Download PDFPriatelia ZEME – CEPA and CEE Bankwatch are today launching a set of recommendations to feed into the Just Transition debate taking place in Upper Nitra and at the national level in Slovakia. The recommendations come in a context when Just Transition i
New jobs in the process of transformation of the Upper Nitra region (in Slovak)
Study | 24 January, 2019 | Download PDFThis paper focuses on a brief outline of concrete steps to turn Upper Nitra towards a low carbon future. In particular, it is to stop further public subsidies to fossil energy – especially lignite mining and burning – and urgently redirect public funds
Failing Better or Climate Success?
Briefing | 10 December, 2018 | Download PDFAll the shareholders of the EIB have ratified the Paris Agreement, and the bank itself has claimed during the One Planet Summit in New York that it will align all its activities with the Paris Agreement by 2020. As President Hoyer put it, ‘I am confide
