Montenegro

An Inconvenient Truth about the Climate Change

To mark the International Earth Day, the U.S. Embassy in Montenegro and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Montenegro organized a presentation of the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”.

From director Davis Guggenheim comes this Oscar Award winning movie about one man’s commitment to expose the myths and misconceptions that surround global warming and inspire actions to prevent it. That man is former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.  «The hottest ten years on record have occurred in the last 14 years”, said Gore on one occasion. “Our civilization is still in a state of ‘category five denial’ over this issue.  But the denial is beginning to give way.

Ms. Arlene Ferrill, Deputy Chief of Mission
at the US Embassy Montenegro welcomes the audience
at the presentation of the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth" in Podgorica

This deepening global climate crisis requires us to act boldly, quickly, and wisely. As it yields to widespread recognition that we face an imminent planetary emergency, we must guard against the illusion that the crisis is too big to solve. We have the solutions available. The only thing missing is political will - but that is a renewable resource.”

“Educative function of this film is particularly important. We are trying to introduce this problem to the youngest, but also to improve awareness of citizens. Global warming is the fact we must be aware of, so that we can deal with such dangers”, said Minister of Tourism and Environment of Montenegro Predrag Nenezić after the projection, stating that Montenegro has shown political will to contribute to the solving of this problem by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol in March this year.  “Montenegro is now officially on the list of the countries which ratified a protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, thus one of the Government’s goals will be to officially get an internationally acknowledged status of ecological country for Montenegro. In that sense we will undertake adequate measures to reduce pollution and carbon emissions. We can also do a lot on the usage of materials, construction techniques, replacement of old technologies, education and legislation”, said Minister Nenezić.

UNDP GEF Portfolio Manager Dijana Spasojević held a presentation on IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Climate Change 2007, stating that the message of the presentation and the film, as well as the International Earth Day is that we are the ones who should do something by using more efficient technologies in everyday work , by walking more instead of driving cars.  “Also, Montenegro has to precisely define the ways of protecting its natural beauties”, said Spasojević. “So much has been done in this domain but still a lot more needs to be done.”

To see Dijana Spasojević's presentation, please click on IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Climate Change 2007

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“In particular, we believe that 2007 will be the year that climate change is widely recognized as a leading development issue”, said Kemal Dervis, UNDP Administrator early April this year. “Although we do not know exactly what the environmental impact of climate change will be, or its precise impact on economic activity, it is clear that it will have much more dramatic effects on the poor countries, both because of geography and because of low income, making adaptation much more difficult.   And, of course, the benefits so far from the economic activities that produce carbon emissions have gone disproportionately to rich countries.  So climate change pushes distributional issues to the forefront.”

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The Republic of Montenegro ratified the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in March this year.  The Protocol specifies the mechanisms for implementation of a country’s obligations under UNFCCC.  The Clean Development Mechanism is of particular importance for Montenegro since it allows financing of environmentally sound projects through cooperation with developed countries.