April 20, 2021 | Read more Heating in the region is still largely based on fossil fuels or wood, the district heating networks are in dire condition, and in poorly insulated buildings winter is not as cosy as it could be. Authorities across the Western Balkans need to pay much more attention to planning and implementing clean and modern heating solutions.
April 19, 2021 | Read more Operating far from the public eye, export credit agencies offer state backing worth billions of dollars every year that in too many cases have enabled both the fossil fuels industry and human rights abuses around the world. These influential public finance institutions have also been relentless in resisting civil society legal challenges to shine a light on how they use public money.
April 19, 2021 | Read more Thanks to pressure from civil society, several harmful investments in highways and gas infrastructure were taken out of the Czech recovery plan, pushing it towards more of a green recovery. Still, an almost complete lack of allocations for biodiversity and several questionable climate measures set the plan back.
April 19, 2021 | Read more Montenegro has recently confirmed that its highly polluting Pljevlja coal plant has exceeded its allowed operating hours under the Energy Community Treaty, yet no moves have been made to close the plant. This threatens to create a worrying precedent if not tackled.
April 15, 2021 | Read more Instead of reforms, the country plans to rehab an irrigation system that can potentially destroy wetlands, and without transparency and public dialogue, the plan cements business-as-usual. With a 30 April deadline for submitting national recovery plans approaching and recent parliamentary elections, the Bulgarian government is failing to propose reforms and measures for biodiversity, sustainable agriculture and low carbon economy. Instead, actions such as rehabilitating state-owned irrigation systems not only contradict national strategies but might damage valuable wetland habitats. A lack of transparency and public dialogue casts a further shadow on the process.
April 14, 2021 | Read more The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) was created in 1991 at a unique moment in history: after the fall of the Berlin wall, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the run-up for the Rio Earth Summit on Sustainable Development and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
April 12, 2021 | Read more Instead of proposing measures that protect nature, countries plan to spend recovery money on projects that jeopardise the EU’s biodiversity objectives. Countries can still reverse this worrying trend before it’s too late.
April 9, 2021 | Read more In just a few months, a protest against a large dam on the Rioni River has grown from a handful of people in Lechkhumi, western Georgia into a national demonstration. On the International Day of Action for Rivers, 14 March, thousands of Georgians made history with the largest environmental protest in the country’s recent past.
April 8, 2021 | Read more There is less than one month left for Member States to submit their national recovery and resilience plans to the European Commission. Yet, the Latvian plan is still far from fulfilling the Commission’s requirements to allocate at least 37% of proposed measures to achieving climate objectives.
March 31, 2021 | Read more The energy sector damages rivers, lakes and other habitats in the countries participating in the Energy Community Treaty, and the Treaty’s current rules are not sufficient to protect them. Our new analysis shows how the EU’s nature and water Directives can be adapted to help address this problem.
