Environment and Energy

This brochure introduces a resident-driven approach that can help a substantial segment of the population to address these housing needs. Based on the “smarter building” approach developed by Ko Gradi Grad (Who Builds the City), a flagship building is being prepared to prove the concept.  

The purpose of this paper is to account for how local governments and citizens perceive sustainable development in Kosovo and explore bottlenecks and opportunities they face in this regard. A combination of document analysis and information gained through public debates shows that local governments are in a favorable position to respond to and address today’s local development challenges in Kosovo. Findings indicate that local governments can play a vital role in educating, mobilizing, and responding to citizens to promote overall sustainable development in the longer term, albeit a relatively new concept in Kosovo. 

This issue of Perspectives is dedicated to climate change mitigation in the Western Balkans, because of both the global need to limit global warming but also because mitigating climate change, as the articles show, goes hand in hand with development both in terms of economic growth and in terms of health, wellbeing and societal development. With this context in mind, the articles before you shed light upon some of the commonly overlooked aspects of it but also point to solutions which are good starting points for any future changes in how we think of energy, development, and public good more broadly.

  The report Chapter 27 in Serbia: No-Progress Report deals with the key events in the areas of environment and climate change (Chapter 27 in the EU accession negotiations) in the Republic of Serbia in the period from November 2017 to February 2018. The report assesses those events and makes recommendations for strengthening the process of transposition and implementation of the EU legislation covered by this chapter.

The European Energy Atlas shows a clear alternative: It not only provides a compass on the different energy discussions in different Member States but also reveals how a Europeanization of the energy transition will be the more efficient and cost-effective option for all Europeans.