Have you ever wondered what it looks like when ministers make concrete green commitments? It changes your life!
Uzbekistan is to build a solar power plant powering the country’s growing economy with 100 megawatts of clean electricity. Apartment owners in Lithuania feeling the chill are going to be able to replace their old boiler with a more energy-efficient one thanks to new subsidised loans - spurring emission cuts and making energy bills more pleasant reading.
Meanwhile in Belarus, passengers will enjoy travelling in greener buses and trains by 2020, saving fuel and cutting harmful air pollution for all. Switzerland will furthermore ensure that heat generated by waste incinerators is to be recycled for heating and electricity.
These are just some of the 113 pledges for a greener future made so far at the eighth Environment for Europe Ministerial Conference held in Batumi, Georgia last June.
Together, the commitments form the ‘Batumi Initiative on Green Economy’, or BIG-E.
World leaders and companies meeting in Davos this week can help turn the initiative into reality through partnerships and other support. So - Barclays, Deutsche Bank and others - will you be joining or working with the BIG-E?
More information on environmental issues to be tackled by the BIG-E pledges can be found in the sixth Global Environment Outlook report for the pan-European region, which was also launched at the Batumi conference. If this interests you, find out more on the transition to Green Economy from p.24 and the Environment for Europe ministerial on p.151.
Join the BIG-E side-event organised in the margins of the 22nd session of the UNECE Committee on Environmental Policy, on 25 January 2017, and learn how countries and organizations follow up on their BIG-E commitments in the pan-European region!
This story was originally posted by @UNEPinEurope.