30 representatives from NGOs, authorities and scientific institutions in 15 countries of EECCA region was gathered in Oslo 2-5.6 to discuss challenges around energy and climate. An open conference day 3.6 gathered additional 30 Norwegian participants from different organisations. The EECCA region consists of very different countries and regions, each with their distinct challenges regarding energy and climate, and most countries with relatively small resources to solve the problems.
At the conference it became clear that in particular Central Asia is one of the regions in the world that already suffers a lot from climate change, and that melting glaciers already emerge as a threat to nature and livelihood of big parts of the Central Asian population. In a simplified way one can say that in EECCA region, the eastern European countries are the big emitters, while Caucasus and Central Asia are the ones suffering from the greenhouse gas emissions.
The main result of the conference is increased contact between NGO partners and their authorities/scientific representatives, which we hope will serve a good basis for increased cooperation on climate change in the future. Most of the countries have a weak institutional and resource basis for climate change work. Even if many NGOs have started to work and influence regarding climate change, also the NGOs are at present not strong enough to make a big difference in most of the countries. Cooperation between authorities, scientists and NGOs are highly needed, as is increased international cooperation and support.
Norges Naturvernforbund works together with NGO partners in almost all the EECCA countries in order to promote a development that we believes will be of benefit not only to the local and global environment, but also for economy, health and development in the countries. We are grateful to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which supports this work, and which also supported the energy and climate conference.
Presentations from the conference can be found at this page. We are also developing a summary of presentations, as well as an information document on energy and climate in EECCA countries. The documents will appear on this site at the other end of summer.
