The non-governmental organization (NGO) Eco Team believes that Montenegro, as a signatory to the Paris Agreement, must make additional efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and follow the ambitious goals of other European Union (EU) countries that have shown readiness and willingness to take concrete actions for the fight against accelerated climate change caused by human activity.
That is why the NGO believes that reconstruction plans and extending the operation of the existing thermal power plant in Pljevlja for at least another 20 years require great caution.
"A few days ago, the Prime Minister of Montenegro announced the news of the Government's withdrawal from the construction of the second block of the Thermal Power Plant in Pljevlje. Although the government's commitment to the environment was initially cited as the reason for such a decision, despite the many economic benefits that investment can bring, a day later it was announced that the real reason is the attitude of international financial institutions towards such projects as well as the impossibility of complying with strict European directives on industrial emissions," reads the statement of the Eco team signed by Diana Milev Čavor.
She considers justified skepticism towards the expectation that the existing thermal power plants will be able to meet all environmental standards and comply with the permitted emissions with the environmental sanction, if this could not be achieved by building a new thermal power plant.
"This is just one of several reasons why there is a fear that the plan for the reconstruction of the thermal power plant will not be realized as it was intended," says Milev Čavor.
He believes that Montenegro, following the EU countries, must define a date for abandoning the production of electricity from coal and define that deadline in the National Climate and Energy Plan, the preparation of which Montenegro has already started.
She reminds that 13 EU countries have done this so far.
"At the United Nations Summit on Climate Action, heads of government and leaders of the private sector expressed their readiness to face climate change and said that the pace of climate action must be accelerated, that more concrete plans and greater ambitions are needed. According to UN estimates, the world will have to to increase its efforts three to five times to keep climate change at a level that science has defined as acceptable, which means a temperature increase of no more than 1,5°C, in order to avoid the consequences caused by those changes, already visible around the world. Science shows that phasing out coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, is essential to achieving that goal. Previous analyzes put the global phase-out date at 2050. New research on what is needed to meet the 1,5°C Paris Agreement shows that governments now they need to move that date back by one decade, and developed countries have to phase out coal faster than the rest of the world - by 2030," points out MIlev Čavor.
He also states that investments in coal, i.e. new thermal power plants, have fallen by 75 percent since 2015, but canceling new projects is no longer enough.
"It is of crucial importance that governments increase their NDCs (intended national contributions to reduce emissions) by 2020, as determined by the Paris Agreement," says MIlev Čavor.
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