“Empowering the Future: Cleaner Energy, More Equal Opportunities”. This is the slogan of an innovative and creative campaign organised by EU Delegation to Serbia with partners for this year`s Green Diplomacy Week, which is starting on Friday.

This campaign aims to engage the public, policymakers, artists, and environmental activists in a collaborative effort to raise awareness about climate change, its impact on Serbia, and the actions needed to address it. Through a combination of panel discussions, art and workshops, events will inspire and mobilise participants to take meaningful steps towards a sustainable future.

„This summer, Serbia experienced some of the most intense heatwaves. We’ve also witnessed heavy flooding and devastating storms. But it’s not just Serbia; it’s a global concern. Serbia, Europe, and the entire world are struggling with climate change, loss of biodiversity, and alarming pollution levels. But we all share a common hope:  our children shall live on a planet without the adverse effects of climate change. Join us as of Friday this week for the European Green Diplomacy Week in Belgrade, Nis, Novi Sad –  and many more places around Serbia. We hope to bring a modest but solid contribution to the global climate solution. Let’s collectively reaffirm our action for climate, for our planet, and for Serbia.said EU Ambassador to Serbia Emanuele Giaufret.

The full programme can be found here.

The theme of this year’s Green Diplomacy Weeks is “a global just energy transition”. In line with the Paris Agreement principles we suggest to focus on the global acceleration of the deployment of energy efficiency and renewables, an area where the EU could showcase significant experiences.

This is aligned with President von der Leyen’s announcement at the Major Economies Forum to work towards global targets for energy efficiency and renewable energy and to develop a dedicated initiative to be launched possibly at COP28.

As bilateral and multilateral diplomatic efforts continue on this front, events organised in this context could demonstrate good practices for energy efficiency improvements and accelerated renewables deployment, highlighting the EU leadership.

This would also help, more generally, raising awareness on the need to speed up efforts to bring the world on track with the 1.5°C objective of the Paris Agreement. In addition, at this year’s Green Diplomacy Weeks we aim to foster gender equality by showcasing in a number of pilot actions the participation and leadership of women and girls in greening our planet.

The European Union is the world leader in environmental protection. The EU supports Serbia on its path to a healthier environment. With over 580 million EUR in non-refundable grants invested in environmental protection and climate action in Serbia, the EU is the largest donor in this area in the country. 

With EU’s financial support, Serbia is working to develop and implement plans for the strategic protection of environment—a sustainable system of environmental protection that creates healthier surroundings and raises the quality of life.