Perspectives Southeastern Europe #6: Still stuck in the past

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.

In 2004 UNDP published a report entitled Stuck in the Past - Energy, Environment and Poverty in Serbia and Montenegro. The study demonstrated how Serbia and Montenegro were still ‘stuck in the past’ in terms of their ability to manage energy needs in a way that will serve their developmental needs. Their economies were based on low-energy efficiency, high-energy intensity, high external, namely environmental and health-related, costs of energy generation and were out of tune with the time, generating poverty and hindering economic development. These findings were and still are very applicable to the entire South East European region. Now, more than a decade later, there are still no public policies in sight which would address these issues in the long run.