Session #2 on Climate and Energy: UNRC Talking Points

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE, thank you for inviting me to open this session. As my Country team knows, this is a favorite topic of mine, and really the agenda looks fantastic!

I will share 5 points with you today.

1. We, as the United Nations, need to push forward the fight on climate change a lot more, a lot faster, a lot louder and towards as many directions as possible – not only the experts in the UN, but all of us, no matter our area of work. We just came out of the hottest summer ever measured, marked by a series of extreme weather events here, in Europe (heatwaves, drought, fires, floods, tornadoes – in Serbia 4 out of 5) – and many of the indicators to evaluate the evolution of climate change are showing a very worrying acceleration. In fact, some scientists have mentioned that they are stunned. The ECA region is responsible for more than 15 percent of global emissions. Of the 54 countries and territories in the ECA region, 18 where UN Country Teams (UNCT) exist have received support from UN to prepare second-generation Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). 25% of countries prepared their long-term climate strategies (LTS) while 56% are preparing their first LTS. These 18 countries and territories in the region are characterized by high levels of energy intensity and resource inefficiency. Up to 96 percent of total primary energy supply comes from fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas). Although there is excellent regional potential for solar, wind, biomass, small hydropower, and geothermal energy, most of these resources remain untapped.  In the Western Balkans, we have seen an increased action to fast-track the energy transition – specific example of Serbia where I can stay that the entire legislative FW on the energy transition, mining, air pollution has been rehauled in the past 3 years. The region, on its accession path to the EU, benefits from The EU Green Deal, and the upcoming Carbon Boarder Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) starting its transitional phase on 1 October 2023, which are critically important for decarbonization of industry through emission trading systems.

2. Climate change is a global, regional and local systemic challenge, and we need to address it with both global and local systemic response. This means we need to work on multiple systemic response:

• national legislative, normative, policy frameworks
• financing and investment frameworks
• global and local technological solutions
• localise solutions for municipalities and specific communities
• pilot and upscale, build, strengthening and sustain capacities
• raise awareness and share knowledge and extensive communication with citizens, including children, private sector, with a focus on solutions and the concept of shared responsibility. And here I want to mention that we still should not underestimate the level of ignorance, denial, and apathy that runs through all our stakeholders, be there public or private. A second finding from the summer, according to polls in Europe, is that the recent worsening of the effects of warming coincides, with an apparent return of climate skepticism”. The UN has been talking about climate warming and climate change since the 70s, and 50 years later, we still have major economies that are taking baby steps towards action.  Here in Serbia we are also looking at how we can advocate for a change in the education curriculum from primary secondary onwards, and to develop many more partnerships with the media.

3. Most importantly, we have to advocate again and again towards a much greater intersectoral approach. Climate change remains still too much under the responsibility of 1 ministry or 1 institution, and others continue to think it is not their business. The top 3 sectors on adaptation in the region are agriculture, forestry, and water while energy, energy efficiency and transport are the key sectors for mitigation. In that regard, I would like to mention that global initiatives such as the Sustainable Food systems, or the energy transition, are excellent platforms for the UN to support this advocacy.

4. We need to work better together. We have a fantastic body of knowledge in the UN system, this is something I learned as RC, and I continue to be astonished on a daily basis. The UN is the only global and local institution that has such wealth of knowledge. We must make better use of it, apply that intersectoral principle to us first, and work better together. This is exactly what the IBC is doing, and the CC IBC has been one of the most effective in sharing this knowledge. We are not there yet. So, my third call to you today is that you turn to all your colleagues in the room, and you see them as your best allies and friends to make a real, fast, deep impact in your countries.

5. Just transition should be at the core of the UN work, in the spirit of the Leave No One Behind principle of Agenda 2030. This is our critical added value in the ECA region particularly where there are so many other players. Still too few people and institutions understand what this concept is about, and how we make it work as a driver and accelerator of the fight against climate change. Development partners don’t know, government counterparts don’t know. So you need to think about developing ways to augment that knowledge and awareness so that your partners make intelligent decisions. In Serbia, we are regularly sharing thematic briefs to all ministries and embassies. Since there is a session on this later on, I wont go into the details, I will just give 2 examples: subsidies / elderly people – poorest households where subsidies don’t work.

Conclusion: with the multiple crises in the past 3 years, the attention of political leaders and of citizens has moved almost exclusively to manage short term challenges and develop short term solutions such as fixing the rising costs of the energy bill with local subsidies. It is our utmost duty to support our counterparts and keep the long-term perspective as their priority – to embrace a full transformation, rather than keep responding to short term emergencies. And in that process, we need to help change the narrative from one of threats to one of opportunities. My last message is that the region is actually among the most silent when it comes to global climate policy and negotiations. I can only hope that together we can jointly lobby for COP29 to take place in Eastern or Southeastern Europe.

I wish you all a fantastic workshop and look forward to hearing about new ideas and approaches.

Hvala, thank you!