Energy Efficiency

TOGETHER AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

With climate change a hot topic in December due to the Copenhagen summit, a series of public awareness activities were held to demonstrate the country’s commitment towards combating climate change. Activities in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme included forums with civil society organizations, petition drives and performances by elementary school students.

Climate change presents a serious challenge to the country’s economic development, with increased costs for adaptation and diminished natural resources in many areas.Under a high climate impact scenario, the country will become hotter and drier, with the greatest increases in temperature and decreases in precipitation occurring in the summer. The average temperature will increase by 5.4^oC and precipitation will drop by 13 percent by 2100. If the world is more successful in reducing emissions, leading to a low climate impact scenario, Macedonia will experience a 2.7^oC average warming, and a 5 percent drop in precipitation by the end of the century.

In the 21^st century, energy, agriculture, forestry, and other economic sectors will all suffer from the anticipated changes in the country’s climate. Future food security will mainly depend on the interrelationships between political and socio-economic stability, technological progress, agricultural policies and prices, growth of per capita and national incomes, poverty reduction, women’s education, trade, and climate variability. Careful planning and strategic investments will be required to adapt to the changes and to continue developing in a hotter, drier, climate-constrained world.

But these new challenges can also lead to new opportunities for advancing green and social economy and securing a low carbon development pathway.In December, UNDP launched ‘Mitigating Climate Change through Improving Energy Efficiency in the Building Sector’. The project will be implemented in the country in the next two years, in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment and financed by theAustrian Development Cooperation. It is expected that this project will significantly contribute to the processes of reducing the energy consumption in residential and public buildings, regulate energy losses and greenhouse gas emissions, and increase the overall energy independence of the country.

Such interventions aim to increase the country’s resilience to the negative impacts of climate change in most vulnerable sectors such as water resources, agriculture, biodiversity, forestry and human health.

News published on: 2010-11-10 09:23:19Source: UNDP dec 2010

TOGETHER AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

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