Ministry of Environmental Protection, together with UNDP, held a two-day workshop on Dialogue on climate change in Serbia. During 23 and 24 April in Vrdnik, a Working group meeting of project “Preparation of reports under United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change” and kick off meeting of the project “Establishing transparency framework under the Paris Agreement” were held. The meeting attended 35 participants from all relevant institutions in Serbia, where a dialogue on climate change was quality and inclusive.
After the opening speeches of assistant minister of Ministry of Environmental Protection, Jasmina Jovic and programme analyst for resilient development, Zarko Petrovic, the workshop started with presenting the role and obligations of Serbia in global climate community. Having in mind that climate change already has a big impact on rising global temperatures, people, systems and living world generally, a special report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was presented, called “Global warming of 1.5оC”, in order to show what are the efforts needed for limiting global working on 1.5оC and what are benefits and differences compared to global warming of 2оC. After that, the analysis with concrete data for the Republic of Serbia on observed and future climate change was presented, prepared under the project. With detailed analysis of climate in recent years, it is observed that the five warmest years were after 2013, where 2018, according to data of Republic Hydrometeorological Service was the warmest year so far.
Following the presented climate analyses, vulnerability in the relevant sectors and possible adaptation measures were presented. Firstly, climate change will affect the sectors of agriculture, water management, forestry and the health sector. Three key issues are raised: implementation of proposed adaptation measures, sectoral synergies and priority setting. It was pointed out that it is very important to include future climate change in the planning of strategies, programs and plans so that the planning of measures should be planned from the point of view of extreme weather conditions that are expected in our country in the coming years.
During the second day of the workshop, more attention was paid to the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventory and specific emission factors in the energy sector. The GHG Inventory was presented with details of data collection, emission calculation and quality assurance and quality control procedures of the Inventory. As for the energy sector, a tool for estimating the national emission factor for lignite is presented, which is the main energy source in thermal power plants in Serbia.
An introductory meeting of the new project “Establishing transparency framework under the Paris Agreement ” (CBIT) was held. The project is led by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, together with the UNDP with financial support of GEF. The project aims to strengthen national capacities for the application of methodologies and tools for improving transparency under Article 13 of the Paris Agreement. Also, the project will contribute to the establishment of MRV systems in Serbia, in order to provide more precise and comprehensive data, necessary for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. With the establishment of comprehensive MRV system, Serbia will be able to analyze and adopt appropriate policies and measures in the field of climate change.
At the end of the workshop, participants had a chance to hear about a example of good practice from Montenegro, where a tool for establishing of comprehensive MRV system was established.
It is concluded that more of such meetings are needed, as this was only an opening workshop for presenting of results of the project and a beginning of cooperation of different institutions, in order to keep the information flow in the future as good as possible.
Presentations and material of the two-day workshop can be found here:
- Progress on implementation of international obligations
- IPCC report 1.5oC
- Observed climate change
- Possible adaptation measures
- Preparation of GHG Inventory
- Recommendation of measures for improvement of GHG Inventory
- Emission factors in energy sector
- CBIT project
- MRV system in Montenegro
- GHG tables of activity
