“The Law on Climate Change has been poorly written, the legislation of the European Union has been only partially transposed, and the essence is that it actually protects the biggest polluter in the country – the Electric Power of Serbia (EPS)”, said Mirko Popović, programme director of the Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute (RERI). In an interview with the Open Parliament, he analysed the basic provisions of the Law, which should be passed by the Serbian Parliament by the end of the week.

 

OP:  The Law on Climate Change is the first item on the agenda of the new sitting of the Serbian Parliament. Since we have not had such laws so far, isn’t that good news?

 

MP: This is essentially a new systemic law that regulates certain issues that have not been regulated so far, but it mostly regulates what has already been done and should have been put in the Law a long time ago. I will remind you that there was a public debate on this Law at the beginning of 2018. I think that there is no good news in Serbia, but we can say that there are certain elements for which it is good that they will finally be legally regulated. It can be said that this is a step forward, but it comes 20 years too late. We pass laws late, when our political rulers go to Brussels and someone there “twists their arms”, and then they say they will “do something”. It’s like when you pressure a child because he has three bad marks, then he gets a better grade in one subject, and decides to tackle the other two later. We are awfully bad students.

 

OP: The Bill seems to have been written rather imprecisely, especially for those who are not very knowledgeable in this area. The introduction states that it “regulates the system for limiting greenhouse gas emissions and for adapting to changed climatic conditions.” What does that actually mean?

 

MP: These are two essential areas of action when it comes to combating climate change. A system for limiting greenhouse gas emissions, the so-called mitigation, which means reducing emissions primarily of carbon dioxide (CO2), and then of other gases. These are direct measures that contribute to the reduction of emissions at their source and refer to emissions caused by human activity. This adjusting to changed climatic conditions is called adaptation, and means: long-term adaptation to a different reality in which we now live. Unlike mitigation, which should involve short-term cuts, adaptation is a longer-term process of aligning with what is our reality.

 

OP: Will this be another one of those laws that is claimed to be well written, but where there are doubts whether it will ever be implemented?

 

MP: This Law is terribly poorly written and it will not be possible to implement it without the adoption of at least twenty by-laws, so I doubt that it will be implemented at all. Unlike the usual story that we put things in words well, but that we are poorly implementing the regulations, we are talking here about the transfer of one important element of the European Union regulations. The regulation refers to key instruments for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, i.e. to CO2 emissions trading, reporting, monitoring and verification. With this Law, we have not transferred the provisions related to the greenhouse gas emissions trading, which was the idea at first. This Law has been drafted for years, initially it was called the Law on Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions, which was a more appropriate name for it. To call something the Law on Climate Change – it looks like playing God, and the only thing that has to do with God and this Law is that Serbia is behaving like the [proverbial] unfortunate person who was late when God was handing out smarts. The previous name was better, because the name Law on Climate Change has no meaning. Climate change is a natural phenomenon and cannot be regulated not even by a “powerful and most successful country in Europe such as Serbia”. It emanates from the meaningless name that the Proponent does not intend to create a system of emissions trading, which is the basic tool for reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the EU.

 

OP: Could you, please, explain to us what emissions trading means?

 

MP: This means that CO2 emitting operators pay for each tonne of gas emitted. 

 

OP: Does that mean that a polluter can emit as much CO2 as he wants if he pays?

 

MP: No, this Law did not regulate that. This Law creates the basic elements – a strategic and planning framework that is incomplete, a system for operators to report on emissions, the method of monitoring and verification process. It is only one segment of the overall system. We have partially transposed the EU legislation tendentiously, so that the biggest polluter and the biggest emitter of CO2 in the country remains protected and that its pitiful and slack business would not even accidentally be jeopardised. The EPS is the key brakeman when it comes to the adoption of this Law. In fact, the EPS, is like someone who doesn’t expresses any will, does not exist, who has long been captured by the private interests of the ruling elites. The idea of this Law is not to introduce a system of emissions trading in Serbia. But I don’t want to be malicious. It’s good that at least in this way permits for greenhouse gas emissions are introduced, as well as a system of monitoring and verification. That is the only positive change.

 

OP: If we know that this is an otherwise complicated topic and that a good part of the citizens do not understand how much pollution affects our everyday life and health, and if we know that we are otherwise quite uninterested in environmental issues, at first glance passing such a law sounds like something is actually moving from a standstill?

 

MP: Unfortunately, this is not the case. This Law should have been passed at the beginning of the century, because the intention of the Proponent is to be gentle towards large emitters of gas. They should first be taught how the system functions and then entered to the emissions trading system. It’s too late for that, way too late. The Law should have been passed in 2003, so that emitters would learn the rules by now and we would have entered the emissions trading system a long time ago. Croatia, for example, has done a lot in the field of energy efficiency and the introduction of renewable energy sources in households by using the funds collected from the CO2 tax.

 

OP: In the field of ecology, we are also worst rated when it comes to negotiations with the EU, which have already slowed down completely?

 

MP: The government signed the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans in November and committed to climate neutrality by 2050, because they probably had not read what they signed or did not care. We have joined the achievement of the EU’s goals when it comes to the fight against climate change, and the EU has been asking us to do that for years. We committed ourselves to that by signing the Paris Agreement, and the first step made by the Republic of Serbia was to use trickery to deceive the UN and plant a false document about the intended contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, by including emissions from Kosovo, and then excluding them later in the output calculation, and show how we reduced the emission. It’s pure trickery.

 

OP: There is a Green Parliamentary Group in the Assembly, which met a few days ago, and announced that it would submit amendments, although it was not announced what they will refer to. Civil society also formally participated. Does that sound like a step forward to you?

 

MP: First of all, I don’t believe that the current Assembly, which has truncated legitimacy, has the capacity to pass this Law at all. You said that the citizens didn’t understand what it was about, do you think that the MPs understand? That initiative of the Green Parliamentary Group also made sense when there were some people sitting in the Parliament who knew something about this topic, such as Gordana Čomić or Sonja Pavlović. Now I don’t believe that these people have the capacity or intention to read this Law. 

 

OP: One provision states that a National Climate Change Council will be established, which will consist of the Government and non-governmental sector representatives and experts.

 

MP: It has already been established, it already exists, just like the Anti-Corruption Agency. It’s been around since 2014, but doesn’t do a thing.

 

OP: What are your main objections, which parts of the Law will not work?

 

MP: This Law establishes a strategic and planning framework, but it does also regulate the adoption of a low-carbon development strategy. That document has already been drafted. It has not been adopted and I would like it to never be adopted, but it was at a public hearing, the Bill was made. The strategy was made for the period from 2030 to 2050, so the Law regulates an issue that will be on the agenda in two or three decades. So when will a new one be made? Second, this Law does not recognise the National Energy Climate Plan as a planning document in the field of climate change. It’s like saying you have a car, everything works great, it just doesn’t have an engine. The National Energy Climate Plan is a document which is a key public policy tool in the EU for achieving climate neutrality, it is a key document. This toothless strategy of so-called low-carbon development is nothing, they actually knocked out the teeth of that strategy by saying that it serves to identify the recommended directions of low-carbon development. Well, the strategy should set goals, define how much CO2 emissions will be reduced by 2030 or 2050, and not just identify the recommended directions. Such a strategy is doomed not to be implemented. And if the National Energy Climate Plan is not included in this law, this strategic framework will be meaningless, as it does not recognise the national contribution to reducing gas emissions, which Serbia is obliged to submit to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change this year, before the next climate summit in Glasgow.

When it comes to emission permits for larger facilities, this is also unspecified. The Law talks about permits before putting plants into service, and it is not clear what will happen to the old facilities. The same system is being introduced for air traffic operators as major polluters, with the postponement of implementation until 2023, if the law is valid at all then, if someone does not put it out of force.

A system of monitoring how much each operator emits and a verification system are being introduced, these are key innovations that still mean that we will not go backwards after that. We will take small steps forward until someone says: from tomorrow on you can no longer burn coal. Think what you’ll do then. We’ll live in a kind of a 19th century romance, as electricity restrictions will be imposed and we’ll have power cuts. That is the most realistic scenario that can happen to us.

 

OP: There is no doubt that the Law on Climate Change will be passed, although no serious discussion on it is expected. The procedure is being followed, there was a public debate, the civil sector was involved. Several public hearings were organised in this convocation of the Assembly. It seems that this very Assembly is rectifying what the EU reproached?

 

MP: We have signed the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU and it contains the obligations of the signatory parties. We cannot shift the responsibility to the EU. The European Parliament made numerous remarks in its report, but we can ask them why they support “bad students”. The EU must do more, launch a mechanism to determine responsibility for why Serbia is wasting millions of EU taxpayers’ money. Is anyone asking them what they are spending the money on? We elected this Government, the citizens voted for these people, and they will vote again, so it is our responsibility.

 

OP: You said that you didn’t expect much from this composition of the Parliament, but do you expect another law to be passed in the area you are dealing with?

 

MP: There is a package of laws that should have been adopted a long time ago. These are primarily laws related to environmental impact assessment and their harmonisation with the EU directives. We were supposed to fulfil that by January 2019. I expect the percentage of sulphur in liquid fuels to be regulated, harmonisation with the directive on criminal offenses and on liability for environmental damage. I also expect the Government to adopt a decree on public participation in the adoption of plans and programmes relating to the environment, because that document was prepared a year ago.