The heroic dust monitor
July 22, 2021 | Read more
This year we are marking five years since Bankwatch engaged in air pollution work in the Balkans. Throughout these years, there was one constant in the work – the environmental dust monitor. It has become the hero of many communities and is known to every organisation in the region that works for cleaner air.
In a series of video tutorials, we demonstrate tools civil society organisations and activists from Uzbekistan can use to have a say about projects supported by development banks that may affect their communities and the environment.
Estonia barely scratches the surface on green recovery
June 30, 2021 | Read more
Estonia’s recovery and resilience plan was one of the last to be submitted to the European Commission. Yet despite the extra time it took authorities to develop, the plan is based on an incomplete vision of a green recovery which completely ignores the issues of biodiversity and nature protection.
People around the world are already feeling the brunt of the climate crisis on an almost daily basis. Most governments accept we are in the midst of a global climate crisis, including those controlling the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). And yet, Bankwatch’s recent analysis shows that during 2019-2020, the EBRD has awarded the fossil fuels industry more than USD 2 million every day on average. Two million dollars. Every single day.
Serbia: key national plan risks cementing coal dependence
June 29, 2021 | Read more
The Serbian government’s 15-year national Spatial Plan is so keen to stick to business-as-usual it is openly ignoring some of the country’s most pressing issues to justify plans for six new fossil fuel-based power plants. Belgrade also doesn’t appear to care much about what Serbia’s neighbour to the east thinks regarding the implications these disastrous plans would have for them.
Romanian government’s coal phaseout blabber
June 17, 2021 | Read more
If official communication about the coal phaseout is any indication about how proper the process will be, we have reason to worry. Over the past weeks, the Romanian government first said they would phase out coal, then came back to say they don’t actually mean all of it.