There is a sentence in European Commission’s reports about Serbia’s progress in EU accession process: “Serbia should harmonize with the views of the European Union on climate change”. We can expect presence of this sentence during this year as well.
In order for this to happen, considering that “our first team still doesn’t play in EU league”, each reserve player on the bench (in our case “Energy sector, Transport, Waste, Agriculture, Environment”) should learn EU league rules in order to be called for the game. It has not yet happened that somebody on the reserve bench changes the rules of the game. It is impossible to negotiate from the bench with the coach – if you know the rules and play good, you’ll join the team. If you play by some other rules – you may be a candidate for the team, but you’ll spend your time on the bench.
So much about European Union’s league.
And why are our players sitting on the reserve bench? Maybe because they are content playing training matches, perhaps because they play in a lower league, which is different from EU one, and which is not demanding on our players…
Since 1960 a significant increase in mean daily temperature trend with an average of 0.3 degrees Celsius per decade has been observed in Serbia. A further increase can be expected. Warming is most evident during summer and autumn, and it is expected that it will exceed 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. The significant downward trend of the water flow for all rivers in Serbia has been noted (with the exception of Danube and Tisza, that originate in other countries). In some parts of the country much drier climate is expected (less rainfall). This climate change trend is already happening, and it influences biodiversity and human health, so we already have a negative influence of certain viruses that thrive in such climate.
New “episodes” of 2015 drought
Serbia belongs to the region that is most affected by climate change, which is corroborated with “episodes” of drought in 2012, floods in 2014 and forecasted drought during summer/autumn of 2015.
According to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, as an international contract signed and ratified by our country, Serbia has an obligation to submit report every two years. The Second National Communication to the UNFCCC for Serbia is in preparation, which determines situation, level of endangerment, measures taken (in sectors of forestry, agriculture and water management), as well as prevention measures (mitigation). Twelve actions needed to prevent climate change have been identified on the national level, and the majority of them are searching for funding. We have 6 registered projects under “clean development mechanism”.
However, the current level and resources on the national level are inadequate for efficient and prompt reaction on climate change and suppression of its effects. Serbia has yet to establish first estimates of possibilities to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (which is Serbia’s obligation according to Convention). Besides “change nothing” scenario, there are two more possibilities. Our reality is closer to the “change almost nothing” statement, because the failure to comply with commitments has been noticed in energy and waste sector (solid waste, waste water). If we continue with “change almost nothing” practice, we’ll by year 2020 reach the greenhouse gas emissions on the 1990 level (and the desired goal for EU countries is reduction of emissions by 2030 of at least 40% compared to 1990).
When it is known that the energy sector (which includes energy industry and transport) accounted for 79.4% of the emissions of these gases in our country in 2013, agriculture with 10.6%, waste with 5.1%, and industrial production with 4.8%, then it becomes clear why we are on the bench for reserves.
Formally, the implementation of Convention and EU integration are not the same thing, so at the moment Serbia is not obliged to harmonize with EU.
So, our problem is not the presentation before other members of Convention later this year in Paris; our major problem is that we’re sending a clear signal to Brussels that we’re not (yet) ready for the EU league.
Contract on energy community
It seems that our players that are still on the reserve bench must understand that “level of play for Paris is still not sufficient for EU league”.
It should not be forgotten that we are obliged by international contracts, such as energy community contract, to “play in the EU league”. If the change is postponed, the inevitable transformation to low-carbon economy is going to be harder.
Is this work easy? No. Difficult political, strategic and financial decisions are needed, and they should lead to an essential shift in energy sector, transport, agriculture, environment and other sectors. We are aware of those problems, but in my opinion not enough.
Will it be harder if we start to solve this task later? Of course it will. Among other things, we are standing still – but others are not. They are moving forward, sometimes very fast.
We have politically and strategically chosen to play in the EU team. It is a great honor to play for that team, because the team shows greater responsibility towards citizens and future generations. And until then? We remind those on our reserve bench that we see that they are playing on the auxiliary pitch. We should help them understand that they are playing only warm-up match, and that they still belong on candidate bench, reserve player bench.
In essence, competent selector(s) and coach(es) are needed. If we don’t provide for that, we will change one auxiliary pitch for another (perhaps one that is even further away from the main one). I differentiate between experts and those who approach climate change “superficially” or “cosmetically” (those who “just love” climate change, but don’t know much on the subject, and are confusing both players and audience-citizens). The erroneous understanding of the problematic leads to wrong decisions – I want to emphasize difference between eco-knowledge and eco-show business, difference between “knowledge on climate change” and “climate change show business”. Eco-show business adds word “green” to inappropriate procedures and production processes.
Because of all said above, I'm worried about how much World Environment Day and European Green Week mean to us this June.
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Article is published in Politika daily