site.btaBulgaria Was Remarkable Success at COP28 - Environment Minister

Bulgaria’s presentation at COP28 was a remarkable success, Environment and Water Minister Julian Popov told Bulgarian media here on Sunday.

"We hosted 22 events which involved a number of international participants, and we also held exceedingly valuable bilateral meetings," Popov pointed out.

He singled out the meeting with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Chair Jim Skea.

"A lot was achieved on Ukraine’s green recovery, in which Bulgaria’s leading role, along with Finland and Germany, was confirmed. Senior officials of the European Commission, from Germany, Slovenia and a number of other countries attended our events. We projected a very strong diplomatic presence, and our business participation was also a major success," the Environment Minister emphasized.

"Bulgaria demonstrated results at COP28. Unlike other meetings, at which the future is discussed, we sought here to show where we stand, and we proved to be positioned very well. The Bulgarian companies: Dronamics, EnduroSat, IT businesses, the Bulgarian CUPFFEE edible coffee cups, are part of this," Popov noted. In his words, the huge Bulgarian business presence and the momentous transformation of the Bulgarian economy were evident at the conference.

Asked by BTA about the Bulgarian plans for participation at COP29, the Minister said that the forum should be more inclusive and split into various events. "We are promoting the idea of a 'distributed COP', comprising several large conferences, but we don’t know how this idea will evolve," Popov said. He hopes that the country will start preparing for its participation at the next COP right now. "This must be a national presentation, with much larger participation involving Bulgarian institutions, business associations and research panels," the Environment Minister said. He recalled that at COP28 Bulgaria presented its national studies of the tangible impact of climate change, such as the Black Sea research of the Institute of Oceanology.

Replying to a BTA question about Bulgaria’s national contribution to the financing of climate action and as part of the EU commitments and about the need to support the green transition in Bulgaria, Popov pointed out that Bulgaria is contributing a token amount to the USD 100 billion fund for support to the less developed countries that was agreed at COP15 in Copenhagen. As an EU Member State, however, Bulgaria is making larger contributions. Part of the climate action financing in the EU comes from trade in greenhouse gas emission allowances, which has generated BGN 2.7 million for Bulgaria that go to the Electricity System Security Fund. One idea, proposed at a ministerial meeting that Popov attended, is to use the proceeds from a future charge on air transport to raise funds for the climate funds, but this is at a very early stage.

"Regulators should be highly expert and politically independent. We must have a regulatory framework ensuring long-term certainty," the Environment Minister argued. He noted the importance of updating the Climate Change Mitigation Act because every industry with a long period of return on investment needs certainty about changes in ten or twenty years' time. "The [electricity] market should be genuinely liberalized, and only vulnerable consumers must be subsidized," Popov insisted. In his opinion, any subsidization of a price that applies to everybody is a subsidy for the rich and does not relieve the poor.

"This is profoundly unfair and must be eliminated. These changes, plus the constitutional amendments that are being debated, will give rise to stability and will open the floodgates of investments," the Environment and Water Minister said.