Source: UNDP
The regional conference “Air Protection” was held in the UN House in Belgrade, and was organized by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in cooperation with the Ministry of Environmental Protection and partners in the project “EU for the Green Agenda in Serbia”. The goal of this event was to enable the exchange of experiences on protection measures, as well as to present successful solutions for improving air quality.
The conference was attended by representatives of competent ministries and local governments from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and North Macedonia, as well as the Delegation of the European Union in the Republic of Serbia, the Embassy of Sweden in Serbia and international organizations.
Program director of RES Foundation, Aleksandar Macura, spoke in the panel discussion on air pollution and how to combat it. Conference participants spoke about the challenges faced by local governments in the region, such as determining the main sources of pollution, choosing optimal measures to prevent and reduce pollution, as well as providing financial resources for the implementation of air protection measures.
Užice was singled out as an example of good practice, which, for the last eight years, allocated more than 250 million dinars for co-financing the replacement of combustion devices and the energy renovation of buildings, so that today only one boiler plant in that city uses fuel oil as an energy source, while two boiler plants use pellets. and the other nine were converted to gas.
They also talked about the increase in the price of energy, which most affected socially vulnerable households. Given that they most often use inefficient devices for heating, often older than 30 years, the City of Užice enabled them to purchase heating devices that consume less energy, heat better and pollute the environment less. The participants pointed out that it is necessary to carefully design incentives for citizens so that no one is left out.
Read the report from the conference at UNDP website.