News from the ENV.net
 

The World Environment Day

World Environment Day (WED) is the United Nations’ principal vehicle for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the environment. Over the years it has grown to be a broad, global platform for public outreach that is widely celebrated by stakeholders in over 100 countries. It also serves as the ‘people’s day’ for doing something positive for the environment, galvanizing individual actions into a collective power that generates an exponential positive impact on the planet.
The WED theme for 2015 was "Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care". The well-being of humanity, the environment, and the functioning of the economy, ultimately depend upon the responsible management of the planet’s natural resources. And yet, evidence is building that people are consuming far more natural resources than what the planet can sustainably provide.
The ENV.net Partners have celebrated this day, by organising some activities in collaboration with various civic organisations to raise public awareness through active involvement of citizens and institutions on topics related to the environment. To know more, have a look at the ENV.net blog and visit the Facebook page!

All countries: ENV.net training programme

Distance learning courses:
a) “Social media, Activism and participation”, The ENV.net course on social media (read more):  Next e-trainings: 23rd June - 7th July  and 28th July - 11th August 2015.
b) “Get funding from the European Union”, the course developed by ENV.net regards the EU as resource partner (read more).  Next e-trainings: 27th July - 10th August and 27th August - 10th September 2015.
To take part, interested participants should first register to the ENV.net e-learning platform here and then choose the course to attend from the "course catalogue". Further inquiries about the course may be sent to env.net-helpdesk@puntosud.org (or click here).

In-country news: ENV.net in action
 

Albania: Co-PLAN in the framework of the ECF regional network together with other organization in Albania EDEN Center and Eco Movement contributed for the EU progress report for Albania that was submitted to European Commission in Brussels within June 2015. The contribution to the progress report conceited on analyzing the progress made in Albania for all 10 chapters of the environmental acquis during 2014 – 2015.

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: On the occasion of World Environment Day, students and teachers of the primary school "Cyril and Methodius" in the village Dabile today joined the action that took place in this village, organised by the environmental organisations "Planetum" and "4x4x4 Balkan Bridges "Skopje - ENV.net partner for Macedonia. Students and other participants in the action cleaned up the park in the village. As part of this action was an outdoor exhibition of photographs taken in the flooded areas in the Strumica region this spring by the photographers Tome Hristov, Maya Ismailov, Stole Angelov and Alexander Donchev (read more).
FYROM has been actively involved in numerous activities under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe) Protocol on Water and Health (hereinafter “the Protocol”), while preparing for accession to the Protocol.
With aim to promote the actions, a two-day workshop titled “Assessing equitable access to water and sanitation and small-scale water supply and sanitation systems” was held on 16-17 June, 2015 in Skopje, and representatives of ENV.net team from Macedonia took active part (read more).

Kosovo under UNSCR 1244/99: Advocacy Training & Resource Center (ATRC) with support from European Environmental Bureau (EEB) conducted a training “The Role of CSOs in decision making process and advocacy tools” in Prishtina on 23-24 June. More than 30 representatives from CSOs including institutional officials were present in the training.   
The main objective of the course is to get a better understanding of the role of civil society (dealing with environmental issues) in environmental decision making process and in implementation of EU Directive for Environmental Information and Aarhus Convention, as well as forms and ways in organizing themselves with the aim of improving environmental situation (advocacy, lobbing, networking, etc.). The training also provided information to the participants on the Kosovo perspective in the above mentioned objectives.

Serbia: The ENV.net partner from Serbia, Environmental Ambassadors for Sustainable Development, in cooperation with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia, organized the conference “Environment to Europe EnE15/ENV.net ”. The conference was held in Belgrade on the World Environment Day, on June 5, 2015, with about 150 participants (read more).
Celebrating the World Environment Day, ENV.net partner in Serbia organised a cycling event on June 7, 2015, in Gornji Milanovac.  The objective of this event was promotion of the environmental values and promotion of the need for a healthy lifestyle. About 100 participants were present. For more info, click here.  

Turkey: On 6 June, 2015, over 10.000 citizens representing a cross section of society in 80 countries met in their respective countries to make their voices heard in the international climate change negotiations leading to Paris, France this December. TEMA, the ENV.net partner in Turkey and Bogazici University Climate Center cooperated with World Wide Views Alliance on Climate and Energy to organise the largest ever global citizen consultation on climate change (read more).
On 10 June, the European Parliament adopted on Turkey progress report and the resolution drafted by the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs member Dutch Social Democrat Parliamentarian Kati Piri on evaluation of the 2014 Turkey Progress Report was approved at the Committee on Foreign Affairs in May. 
Resolution consists mainly of concerns over press and individual freedoms, rule of law and democracy. Regarding environment and energy sectors, Turkey’s huge potential on renewables were highlighted and concerns about closer energy cooperation between Turkey and Russia were raised. To access the full text of the resolution, click here.

I. Sixth meeting of the Accession Conference with Montenegro at Ministerial level - 2 new chapters opened. The sixth meeting of the Accession Conference with Montenegro at Ministerial level was held on 22 June in Luxembourg to open negotiations on Chapter 9 - Financial services and Chapter 21 - Trans-European networks. In addition, the Conference confirmed at Ministerial level the opening of Chapter 16 - Taxation, and of Chapter 30 - External relations, which were considered at the Accession Conference with Montenegro at Deputy Level, held in Brussels on 30 March 2015 (read more).  
II. Many European countries' air pollutant emissions above legal limits. Air pollutant emissions in the EU continue to exceed legal limits, according to a report from the European Environment Agency (EEA) published on 11 June. Preliminary data for 2013 shows that ten EU Member States exceeded one or more of their emission ceilings for key pollutants. For more information, click here
III. What will be the impact of air pollution between now and 2030? Use the Air-o-Meter to find out!  The EU is currently looking to set new limits for air pollution emissions between now and 2030. These limits will have a huge impact on the air citizens breathe for the next 15 years. A few weeks ahead of a major vote in the European Parliament on this file, the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) has created an online, interactive tool called the Air-o-Meter which assesses the impact of the different options on human health, the economy and the environment. To read more, please follow the link.
IV. Shared agriculture, land use, and forestry emissions target would undermine EU climate action. Emissions from land use change and forestry must not be grouped together in a common target with those from farming and other sectors –doing so would significantly undermine efforts to reduce non-CO2 emissions from farms, particularly from livestock and fertilizers (read more).
V. Updated environmental standards for power plants fail to recognise best performance.  After an intense series of  meetings, representatives from EU Member States, the European Commission, industry and a handful of NGOs finalised the revised environmental performance standards for large combustion plants, including lignite and coal-fired power plants. These standards set out the emissions levels for various pollutants that can be achieved under technically and economically viable conditions and based on “best available techniques” (BAT). The latest draft will deliver emissions reductions compared to the status quo, but the upper emission ranges do not, in our opinion, represent genuine BAT levels. This is largely the result  of Member States defending industrial operators rather than public interests. 
VI. European Parliament and Council agree a deal on pollution from medium combustion plants.  On 23 June, the European Parliament, European Commission and Council Presidency reached an agreement on a new Directive regarding pollutant emissions from medium combustion plants (capacity between 1 to 50 MW). Medium combustion plants are used for, among others, electricity generation, residential heating and cooling and providing heat or steam to industry. While they are a major source of air pollution they have until now not been regulated at EU level (read more).
VIII. Seaweed could effectively monitor metal pollution in coastal waters. Seaweed may prove to be a valuable tool to monitor metal pollution in coastal waters, new research has found. Spiral wrack seaweed (Fucus spiralis), which is common to rocky coastlines across western Europe, was found to contain concentrations of metals that rose and fell in line with concentrations in the surrounding seawater. This makes it a good candidate for inclusion in the European environmental specimen banks as part of an environmental monitoring network under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.
IX. How to improve the efficiency of public participation processes in coastal management. Public participation in developing coastal management plans can have numerous benefits, such as augmenting expert information with local knowledge and building trust, a new study has confirmed; however, challenges remain, say the researchers. They use the experiences of 10 case studies to make a series of recommendations regarding how to improve the efficiency of the process.

Q: When the implementation of the Action requires financial support to be given to third parties, which elementsshould be included in the Call for proposals?

A: Where this possibility is indicated under the relevant topic, proposals which foresee a financial support to third parties shall clearly detail the objectives and the results to be obtained and include at least the following elements: