Blogs

Signing the Paris Agreement is an important step in Europe's contribution to the global effort to tackle the climate crisis.

But funding this commitment necessarily passes through the public coffers. To kick-start the much-needed energy transition– by swiftly cutting emissions to reach the global carbon neutrality the Paris Agreement prescribes for the second half of this century –a change of paradigm in public investments in energy infrastructure is needed.

The Southern Gas Corridor risks locking in higher fossil fuel dependence and wasting colossal amounts of public money.

As the 2016 Aid Transparency Review shows some improvement for the two main European lenders, they are still far from reaching satisfying transparency standards.

The Romanian city of Reghin wants its citizens to agree before a potentially harmful formaldehyde plant is built. It has to defend this decision in court.

Ahead of a referendum in the Netherlands on the association agreement between the European Union and Ukraine, Olexi Pasyuk from the National Ecological Centre of Ukraine discusses the agreement’s importance for Ukraine’s civil society and why Europe must still improve how it engages with the country.

After hitting a snag, the Khudoni dam in Georgia’s mountains is back in the game threatening to expropriate private lands and to bump up electricity prices for Georgian consumers. The controversial changes in an amended contract have inflamed the passion of the Svans who have for years tried to protect their communities from flooding.

The Zagreb wastewater plant public-private partnership (PPP), financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), has for years been highlighted by Bankwatch and its member group Zelena akcija/Friends of the Earth Croatia as a harmful project allowing the private sector enormous profits at the expense of the City of Zagreb and the public.

After decades of putting up with noise and dust, people in Runcurel, Romania are being told they are in the way of national interest. Together with the two civil society organisations, land owners are challenging the government's decision and the coal company's actions.

While the Energy Community yesterday failed to consider more stringent air pollution rules for the Western Balkans, a new report quantifies the health costs of the region’s coal burning both within the region itself as well as in the neighbouring European Union.

The mistrust and frustration of communities in the mountains of north-western Georgia is deepening over make-shift consultations on large dam constructions.