(Podgorica, October 22. 2013.) – Ministerial Council of the Energy Community, under the leadership of Serbia will meet in belgrade on Thursday, October 24th, to decide on access to clean pollution from burning coal in accordance with their ambitions for membership in the European Union. A group of non-governmental organizations reported a report in order to contribute to this discussion. It is the time for systemic cleaning of dirty coal in Southeast Europe: the hidden coast that we can avoid [1], a a report presented today in belgrade, testifies to the need to protect citizens of Southeast Europe from health difficulties that are results of burning coal. Regional organization SEE Change Net, in cooperation with the organizations Center for Public Interest Advocacy – CPI (Bosnia and Hercegovina), Fractal ad CEKOR (Serbia) and MANS (Montenegro), called the energy Community to avoid any kind of delays in the implementation of the European Union instructions that regulate the reduction of air pollution from coal power plants.
Group of states that signed the Law of establishing the Energy community – led by Serbia – trying to block the proposal from the European Commission for the encouragement faster implementation of the instructions controlling pollution from coal power plants. Power of the minsters’ decisions from the region on two not that well known but very important directives (Directive on Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) and industrial Emission Directive (IED) [2]) will clearly show that they care more about profit than public health.
For now, the countries from the region have failed to prepare for stricter emission standards [3], and while the deadlines are closer, they are trying to find excuses. “The Serbian government, by proposing delay of the implementation of these crucial directives wants to punish its citizens to live in pollution during the coming years. We do not want to be treated in Europe as second-class citizens”, said Zvezdan Kalmar from CEKOR.
Jernej Stritih, the report author, an independent consultant and former director of the Slovenian Government Office for Climate Change, said: “If we compare the options of investments in building of new coal plants or installing an equipment for pollution control in already existing power plants, with current annual costs that the economy is incurred for use of coal (health care cost and subventions), it is clear that w should remove coal from use as soon as possible”.
Projected annual health care costs are in the range of 2.3 to 6. billion euros in the countries in the region – Bosnia and Hercegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia. [4] “One more alarming fact is that even if pollution is reduced by 90% comparing to the present value, the annual health care costs will remain at a level between 250 and 650 million in the three countries”, said Lidija Kesar from NGO Fraktal.
On the other side, investment in pollution control, and then closure of existing plants in the nest 10 years, would cost 1 billion of investments, and that would result in approximately 40 billion of external costs until their closing, but the negative effects on health would be reduced much faster then it would be in the case of construction of new plants that would work for the next 50 years.
The public in the region deserves better, explained Dejan Milovac from NGO MANS from Montenegro. “If the environmental standards of European Union are not strongly imposed, we would be in the situation where our government would profit from the sale of energy to italy, and we would pay medical expenses and pollution cost.
The European Commission and the Secretariat of Energy Community must refuse all attempts to delay implementations of sole directives on pollution that will help reduce death toll caused by burning coal. The ministerial Council of Energy Community should decide in favor of applying the tools that can save lives. The key is that any mechanism that would make obligations stronger between parties of the Energy Community is mandatory, with regard to the LCP Directive and IE, and not in the form as a “suggestion” or “guideline”. Irma Filipovic from the center of Public Interest Advocacy _ CPI says: The decision that is going to be make on Thursday it will show whose interests are protected – the interests of industry or the interests of the citizens”.
