Germanwatch travelled to Northern Macedonia together with three partner organisations. On site, we learned that an open-cast lignite mine can become a solar park, how small businesses are revolutionising the electricity supply and why cross-border cooperation is particularly important for the energy transition in the Western Balkans. A travel report.

Within the first cycle of the Learn.Mobilize.Participate support program the Belgrade Open School team organized a three-day training session in Sabac for local partners, CSOs and media, which deal with the protection and improvement of the environment.

Today we know that the area of ​​the Balkans is one of the most vulnerable areas to climate change and that our region is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. In the past weeks, a large part of Serbia was affected by catastrophic floods that led to the declaration of a natural disaster in 56 cities and municipalities across the country. Climate change has become our reality and it is nothing new.

The European Union is making efforts to realize the vision of the European Green Deal, which calls for Europe to be a climate-neutral continent by 2050. In order to achieve this, it is developing a mechanism whose purpose is to motivate the EU's trading partners to take steps to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. Also, the European Green Deal mandates that the European Union be a fair society, and the introduction of various climate policies in accordance with the European Green Deal

Every individual has the potential to contribute to the fight for a clean environment by influencing the development of public policies. However, effective participation in decision-making can only be done if we are well informed. In order to contribute to this important goal, we present to you the new EcoReflector column, within which we will provide all our readers with a simple and easy-to-understand approach to complex topics in the field of environmental protection.

The Belgrade Open School, in cooperation with the Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute (RERI), organized the second in a series of Green Talks on the topic of the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP).

With the aim to involve a wider circle of organizations in the early stages of drafting the National Environmental Protection Strategy, Belgrade Open School, Young Researchers of Serbia and Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute within the framework of the project Volvox - Community Strength organizes a consultative process with civil society organizations.

On Monday, May 22, 2023, the Young Researchers of Serbia (YRS) marked the International Day of Biodiversity by awarding "Volunteers are Nature’s Peers" recognition to Aida Paljevac, volunteer and activist from Nova Varos, to honor exceptional volunteer engagement in the field of nature protection within the project "Together for the Environment".

The Belgrade Open School, in cooperation with the Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute (RERI), organized the first in a series of Green Talks within the Civil Society for Energy Transition project.

The second warmest year in the history of measurements in Serbia, according to the data from the Republic Hydrometeorological Institute, was the year 2022, while even 7 out of 10 warmest winters in Serbia have been recorded since the beginning of this century. Decarbonization, i.e., abandoning coal and other fossil fuels as primary sources of energy production, is a priority in the fight against climate change, as fossil fuels are the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions, which cause globa

The Belgrade Open School and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) launched five-year "Together for the Environment" project to improve environmental protection and biodiversity in Serbia. The project was opened at a conference that gathered more than 70 representative from different social sectors - public, civic and business with the aim of developing cooperation.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection, in cooperation with partners, has started the process of developing an Environmental Protection Strategy with an Action Plan within the EU project for the Green Agenda in Serbia. In order to make the process more transparent and with the desire to involve a wider range of organizations in the process of drafting the Strategy, on March 9, 2023, the first consultative meeting was held in Belgrade in order to give representatives of civil society organizati

The Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) is a key document that should set the goals of the national energy and climate policy, provide a framework for the energy transition process and be an instrument for reaching the long-term goals of the EU energy and climate policy.

Analysis of the report on the state of air quality in Serbia for 2021.

In Serbia, the Low Carbon Development Strategy, more than two years after the public discussion, was not adopted, while the Draft of the National Energy and Climate Plan does not envisage measures that would make our country carbon neutral by 2050.

In the statement of the Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) published on Tuesday, November 22, it is stated that the air in the previous days, except in Valjevo, was of good quality and appeals to citizens to contribute to the improvement of air quality by choosing environmentally friendly energy sources. Belgrade Open School considers this kind of appeal unacceptable because it represents the transfer of responsibility for air pollution from decision makers to citizens.

The Minister of Environmental Protection, Irena Vujović, stated that investment in environmental protection will remain one of the priorities in the coming period and added that in the previous two years, the most was done for cleaner air in Serbia. On the other hand, the rebalancing of the budget for 2022 reduced the total budget of the Ministry of Environmental Protection by 1.29 billion dinars.

The energy crisis and the heating season draw out the important questions on issues that require continuous, not seasonal, attention of citizens - the danger of fossil fuels and, in connection with that, finding renewable and long-term solutions. The imperative to abandon fossil fuels primarily lies in the fact that they pollute the environment, cause climate change and have limited supplies, so the issue of availability of these energy sources and dependence on energy imports from other countri

Are there differences in the assessments of Serbia's progress when it comes to harmonizing legislation with the EU acquis related to Chapter 27, in the Coalition 27 Report and the Report of the European Commission? How far has Serbia really come in the field of environmental protection? All things considered, what is the line between limited progress and regression

The beginning of the heating season is the right moment to recapitulate the problem of air pollution in Serbia. The moment is all the better if you take into account that two reports were recently published that give an overview of this problem. One is the Shadow Report of Coalition 27, which provides an overview of Serbia's progress in adopting and implementing the acquis of the EU in Chapter 27 - environment and climate change. The second is the Report of the European Commission on Serbia