A comeback to Polish prime minister Tusk’s backing of coal
September 13, 2013
“Poland will continue to back coal (…) The future of Polish energy is in brown and black coal, as well as shale gas,” said on Tuesday Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, speaking at an event of the extractive industry.
Of horses and roads – protests in Ukraine highlight lack of safety
September 11, 2013
Demonstrations in Kiev have shown that road safety is not only for cars but also pedestrians and other traffic participants – a lesson that the Ukrainian road company still needs to learn and that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development should be teaching more actively.
Energy consultations reveal lack of strategic thinking at the EBRD
September 6, 2013
With another public action, colleagues in Moscow are today bringing to a close a week that has seen the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development having to listen to a lot of uncomfortable truths.
Nordic countries ‘no’ to coal is a glimmer of hope for EBRD energy lending
September 5, 2013
The global campaign to make the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development restrict its coal lending may have found new allies in Nordic countries after their declaration yesterday to seize overseas coal investments.
Thousands remind the EBRD that coal is not an option
September 4, 2013
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development received a little surprise visit this week from 16 000 voices against coal.
Pressure builds on EBRD to quit coal lending
September 4, 2013
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development lags behind other major international financial institutions that are moving away from supporting dirty energy projects.
Groups petition Polish government to drop permit for Europe’s largest planned coal plant
August 26, 2013
On Monday Polish NGOs Client Earth, Workshop for all Beings, Greenpeace, WWF and local community group Eco-Kociewie petitioned the General Director of Environmental Protection to cancel the environmental impact assessment permit for the Polnoc Power Plant in northern Poland.
All at SEA – key assessment of EU funds programmes in Latvia fails to address environmental concerns, opportunities
August 15, 2013
There is a big long list of technical jargon attached to the programming documents of the EU funds for the 2014-2020 funding period – enough to fill an entire blog post on its own. But you will be relieved to read that, in the context of Latvia’s ongoing negotiations as to how we will spend our future EU budget money, I will focus on only one of these items. It may be a bit of a mouthful, but it is what it says it is – only in Latvia, as environmental NGOs are discovering, what should be a safeguard for the environment appears to have gone missing.
Policy briefing: New draft energy (read oil, gas and coal) strategy at the EBRD
July 24, 2013
The EBRD’s draft energy strategy doesn’t have a climate target. It recognizes the urgency of climate action and the fact that the energy sector is the largest greenhouse gas emitter and places energy efficiency and renewable energy at the core of the transition to low carbon economies. The low carbon transition appears to be a central theme of the draft strategy but when it comes to the fossil fuels sector, it only translates into a potential slight reduction in coal investments.
PPPs “poor in practice” admits new EBRD-financed study
July 22, 2013
Despite collecting impressive evidence from 20 years of failed public-private partnerships in central and eastern Europe, an EBRD-financed study by the Economist Intelligence Unit concludes to continue using the controversial financing scheme.