BONN, Nov. 17 – Environmental and climate change authorities from the Western Balkans met at a high-level panel in Bonn, in order to express the consistent commitment to united regional action that will address environmental and climate challenges.
Goran Svilanovic, Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), told participants that environment and climate change adaption emphasizes the efforts for the region’s socio-economic strengthening, and that simultaneous action by all actors is the only method that could bring about tangible results.
“RCC’s annual public and business opinion survey Balkan Barometer 2017 (BB) shows that 73% of citizens of the region perceive climate change as a problem, continuing upward trend registered in 2015. 77% of businesses in South East Europe say they have already undertook some measures to reduce harmful impact on their environment. Therefore, this is an opportune moment, which should be used to identify and implement joint activities that would follow up the implementation of ambitious regional Multi-Annual Action for Regional Economic Area (MAP REA) in the Western Balkans economies in areas of trade, investment, mobility and digital integration, each one involving environmental dimension,” Svilanovic was quoted in a RCC news post.
The participants approved the ‘Declaration on Environment and Climate Action in the Western Balkans’, agreeing that Western Balkans need to improve the synchronization of existing regional initiatives and projects, as well as those that would further serve the SEE 2020 Strategy goals. They also acknowledged the strong ties between energy, and environment and climate change policies, and explored ways to strengthen inter-section cooperation at the highest political levels.
Regional efforts for environmental and climate change adaption have already been made, through the Regional Working Group on Environment, directed by the RCC and rotating co-direction by Western Balkan economies. The main task of the Working Group is the implementation of the Environment Dimension of the RCC’s SEE 2020 Strategy.
Goran Trival, the Serbian Minister for Environmental Protection, stressed that establishing an environment-related ministry, the Serbian Government proved its commitment to tackling the changes.
“Acting only on national levels without proper regional coordination would not suffice and therefore Serbia is to initiate series of regional initiatives to deal with environmental and climate change issues on a wider scale. Importance of cooperation in this field is confirmed by the fact that 2016 was the warmest year on record and on the global level 1.1 °C above the preindustrial period, while it is expected that 2017 will showed to be one of the three warmest years on record. Moreover, we could expect to see the negative trends with growing amount of disasters to continue until the 2060’s,” said Trival in the RCC news post.
The meeting also addressed the execution of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and ways the region can adapt to unavoidable climate changes. According to the preliminary findings of the Study on Climate Change in the Western Balkans Region, Western Balkan is much more susceptible to climate change than the rest of Europe in many sectors, a fact that requires attention and preventive action from the region’s economies.
The future co-chairmanship of the Regional Working Group on Environment was handed to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia at the end of this meeting.
