Recommendations
The Western Balkans CCDR provides several policy recommendations facilitating the region’s transition towards climate neutrality by 2050. These recommendations are categorized according to the 3 T’s: Transversal, Transboundary, and Targeted policies.
Transversal Policies enable the government to coordinate efforts across different sectors. This approach helps to prevent policy duplication and ensures that agencies do not operate in isolation. To support the development of these policies, the governments in the Western Balkans could:
- Establish climate-focused agencies or commissions to coordinate climate action across governments in the region.
- Limit energy and transport fuel subsidies that hamper the development of cleaner technologies, while protecting the most vulnerable communities.
- Undertake reforms to privatize state-owned enterprises (SOE), enhancing their financial performance, aligning prices with the true costs, and allowing further alignment with European Union energy markets.
- Develop green finance markets by issuing green bonds, social bonds, or similar debt instruments to expand investments in the green transition.
- Retrain the workforce for the green economy.
- Boost accountability in climate action to attract private investments and strengthen citizen awareness of climate change.
Climate hazards do not adhere to geopolitical boundaries, and many critical natural resources are shared across borders, including rivers and air. This highlights the importance of transboundary policies in addressing localized climate challenges. The Western Balkans can contribute to this effort by implementing the following Transboundary Policies to support climate action:
- Invest in regional early warning systems to monitor and forecast the likelihood of natural disasters in at-risk regions.
- Coordinate carbon pricing in the power and gas markets in the Western Balkans to promote cross-border energy flows, diversify the power mix, attract cleaner technology investments, and facilitate a smoother green transition.
- Increase economic integration by aligning energy, transport, and agricultural systems to make trade and investment more attractive.
Targeting specific sectors, communities or locations would ensure that adaptation and mitigation efforts are delivered in the most effective way. Key Targeted Policies recommended by the CCDR include:
- Implement disaster risk management systems and plans to prepare for climate hazards, ensuring peoples’ safety and economic security.
- Transform the power sector to be clean, efficient, and flexible.
- Modernize the agricultural sector, improve the efficiency of irrigation systems, rehabilitate water distribution and drainage systems, implement climate-smart agricultural practices, and develop insurance schemes to ensure the resilience of the agricultural system to climate shocks.
- Remodel cities to better coordinate land and housing investments, to be greener while reducing climate risks, and to attract private capital.
- Ensure coal phaseout strategies are based on just transition principles so communities most affected are supported by appropriate reskilling support and economic diversification.
- Implement programs boosting energy efficiency and reduce seismic risks of buildings in the residential and industrial sectors.
- Decarbonize transport by better urban design and incentivizing walking, cycling, and public transport use.
The Western Balkans CCDR finds that investing in adapting to the effects of and mitigating climate change is both urgent and important. Such interventions will save lives, drive growth, and make the planet more livable.