Weekly Briefing, Vol. 26, No. 3 (RS), February 2020
Air pollution – major concern of Serbian citizens
Although majority of Serbian citizens usually are not interested in the environment, situation drastically changed by the end of 2019 while the peak this happened in January 2020. Due to specific weather conditions, all Balkan countries, and Serbia among them, were faced to new type of challenge which posed severe threat to the health of their citizens.
Concern about the air quality between Serbian citizens started to be expressed firstly on October 20th, 2019 when Air Visual published that Belgrade was first on the list of 20 the most air polluted cities in the world. However, Belgrade wasn’t only Serbian city with this problem, citizens of Valjevo, Smederevo, Kragujevac, Užice, Bor, etc., also lived covered by smog. Under such conditions, the air pollution became the most discussed topic among ordinary people, traditional topics as football, internal politics and reality programs left far behind.
As expected, the President, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health and the Environment assured people that there is no room for panic because the situation is no different than in previous years. On the other hand, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned about pollution mortality. Namely, at the end of December, the director of the WHO for Serbia warned that more than 6,000 people die annually as a result of pollution in the country.
In January situation got worse due to meteorological conditions, lack of the wind and precipitations. After several weeks of continuously poor air quality across the country, Prime Minister Ms. Ana Brnabić called an “urgent” government meeting on January 15th. After the meeting, she stated that the pollution was not higher than in previous years, but the next day she said that “it was worse in some cities because of meteorological conditions, fog, because there was no snow and wind.” She explained that the meeting was held “because she was not satisfied how the government had communicated on this topic so far and that it did not inform well citizens what had been done so far”.
Mr. Goran Trivan, Minister of Environment, who also attended the meeting, said that, as is the case of Sarajevo and Northern Macedonia, short-term measures would be taken, but at the same time he stated that no concrete measures had been discussed though.
People were even more puzzled after the statement of Minister of Health, Mr. Zlatibor Lončar,
that there was pollution, but no reason to panic. He explained: „it could not lead to serious health consequences“ and immediately urged „that children, elderly and chronic patients have no physical activity outside on days when increased air pollution“ and, if they are already outside, „put a scarf over their mouths“.
At the same time, Ministry of Education has recommended that preschools, primary and secondary schools monitor air pollution information and „organize their work in the best way and in the interest of safeguarding the safety and health of children.“
Citizens expressed their concern by gathering in Belgrade and other air pollution hit cities. They demanded urgent and concrete measures to combat pollution. Also, they claimed right to be properly informed and criticized Government’s intention to diminish the problem.
It is obvious that problem exists. Annual reports of the Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), which monitors the concentrations of harmful PM10 and PM2.5 micro particles since 2010 (prior to the establishment of the Agency, the Republic Hydro meteorological Service of Serbia conducted these measurements) indicate that air pollution is present in several places in Serbia over the last 10 years as a chronic problem.
According to SEPA and its latest available air quality report (for 2018), „micro particles in 2018, as in previous years, was the dominant pollutant in the Republic of Serbia“. The annual allowable concentration of these particles (PM10 – particles with a diameter of 10 micrometers, which is ten times less than the diameter of human hair) was exceeded at all SEPA measurement sites, and the worst was in Valjevo, Užice, Smederevo, New Belgrade, Kraljevo, Sremska Mitrovica. Kosjerić and Kragujevac, although, for example, Niš had the best air category, but only because the measurements of PM10 were not performed to a sufficient extent.
At the measuring point in Valjevo, out of 365 days a year, this concentration exceeded the limit in 170 days. Valjevo holds a record even at a daily concentration of PM10 – 50 micro grams per meter cubic per day is allowed, and in Valjevo 552 µg / m3 was measured in one day (Užice is in the second place with a day that recorded 359 µg / m3 of PM10 particles).
According to the SEPA report, “a number of impact studies have shown a link” between the average annual PM10 value and the health effects on the urban population, “because these particles penetrate directly into the lungs where they cause inflammatory processes and worsen the health of people with heart and lung diseases”. According to the United Nations data from May 2019 (Air Pollution and Human Health: The Case of the Western Balkans), there are more than a thousand deaths per year in Belgrade due to nitrogen dioxide emissions alone. As they said at the UN it wasn’t possible to analyze the impact of PM2.5 particles, given that there were no complete data for Belgrade.
The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019 as published a survey which shows that air pollution could be responsible for more than 6,500 premature deaths in Serbia. An earlier WHO and OSCE survey found that in 2010 alone, these early deaths cost Serbia a third of GDP, measured by purchasing power. The WHO also estimates that due to lost working days as a result of short-term exposure to PM2.5 particles, Serbia loses € 324 million annually, and that 18.8 percent of all deaths in Valjevo are caused by overexposure to these particles.
It is evident that suspended particles are the dominant pollutant in Serbia. The question is how they are produced? What creates them? According to SEPA, in 57 percent of the cases, producers are thermal power plants less than 50 MW and individual combustion plants. The industry contributes only 13 percent to the creation of PM10, agriculture (excluding livestock) with 10 percent, road transport with 6 percent, and electricity and heat production with only 5 percent.
When it comes to smaller (and more dangerous) suspended particles, PM2.5, as much as 75 percent of emissions come from small power plants and individual combustion plants, 9 percent from industry and 6 percent from traffic, SEPA data shows. However, in more than half of the cases (52 percent), the SEPA measurement sites in 2018 failed to reach the availability of valid pollutant values measured at more than 90 percent every hour. This means that the analyzer’s operability in 2018 was only 48 percent (up from just 22 percent in 2017).
According to the latest SEPA report on the state of the environment in Serbia (for 2018), no significant changes in emissions of suspended particulate matter (PM10) were observed from 1990 to 2017. Also, that report states that in the period 2010-2018. PM10 particles most often contributed to the heavily polluted air in Belgrade, and in 2018 in 39 percent of cases were the cause of poor air quality.
The concern – which is the biggest polluter – could perhaps be resolved after the Ombudsman of Serbia initiated the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s control process on January 13th, assessing that “no specific action has been taken or implemented by the Ministry but other relevant state bodies.” According to the Ombudsman’s website, “as the expert public points to a number of different causes of air pollution, such as the burning of poor quality coal in thermal power plants, more intensive traffic, individual combustion plants and current weather conditions”. The Ombudsman asked the Ministry of Environmental Protection for information on whether it has carried out an “analysis of the main, dominant causes of high levels of pollution individually by cities and local self-government units”, and “whether the Ministry of Environmental Protection has foreseen and proposed to undertake urgent short-term, in relation to the identified major causes of air pollution, and long-term measures to combat them and what they are, and if not, why not done”.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection issued a statement stating that “it has done everything within its jurisdiction with regard to reducing air pollution”, stating that local governments are legally responsible for air quality in their territory, but that most have no plan for protecting him.
The ministry has also come up with a list of measures that need to be taken to improve air quality, pointing out that out of the one proposed in their formal jurisdiction, only one out of nine items is concerned with the development of air quality plans by local governments.
Air pollution should be solved also related to Serbian EU accession process. Namely, Serbia is obliged to follow first directive on large combustion plants, but still National Emission Reduction Plan (NERP) has not been adopted.
The biggest problem, according to Energetic Community (EC) Secretarita, is sulfur dioxide emissions. According to their data from 2018, gas emissions at the Kostolac thermal power plant exceeded the planned 14 times and 4.7 times at the Nikola Tesla thermal power plant in Obrenovac.
However, there is hope that Serbia will soon seriously address needed environmental reforms. Specifically, European Integration Minister, Ms. Jadranka Joksimović, announced on January 21 that Serbia has formally submitted its negotiating position for Chapter 27 – Environment and Climate Change.
According to her, “it is important to emphasize that the negotiating position for Chapter 27 is coming at the right moment, at the time of formulating the European Green Agreement, accompanied by the Investment Plan, presented by EC President Ursula von der Leyen on January 14th in Strasbourg. This is significant, especially given the announcement of a separate Green Deal for the Western Balkans, which will also set aside large funds for this area.”
Not surprisingly, Serbian citizens are suspicious about these announcements and rely themselves more on the wind as their savior then the authorities.
Conclusion
Winter of the year 2019/2020 brought in life of ordinary Serbian people completely new topic, the air pollution. Specific weather conditions remind Serbs that unhealthy air is not something that happens only to others, but that they are vulnerable too. Of course, the rise of conscious can help, but what really is needed is national strategy and plan which should be started implementing yesterday.