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E N VI R ON MENT
By ŽIKICA MILOŠEVIĆ
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TACKLING POLLUTION Determined country with a concrete plan
ince October, the media in Serbia and the region have extensively been reporting about extreme cases of air pollution, and the topic has become hotter than chatting about politics. Countries in transition, from China and India to Poland and the Balkans, are struggling to fight pollution. But how can a country where production accounts for 20% of GDP can do it better?
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TO REDUCE PERSONAL USE OF VEHICLES
When talking about the quality of life in various cities around the world, the cost of public transport is often taken into consideration. In some cities such as London,
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GERMANY 2020
the figure can be as low as 180 euro per month, in others this cost is much lower. As you can deduce, this is the case with the countries where liberalism is less alive, and where horizontal solidarity is much greater. Germany is one such country, and other
THE IDEA IS FOR PEOPLE TO USE THEIR PERSONAL CARS LESS, UNLESS THEY ARE USING THEM FOR A PERSONAL TRIP
highly developed countries, or those with the Protestant spirit, such as Luxembourg or Estonia, have already introduced free public transport. This may soon happen in certain German cities too as a result of the desire to reduce pollution to the lowest possible level. Clearly, the idea is for people to use their personal cars less, unless they are using them for a personal trip. But if they are using them to go to work, which is the reason for most traffic jams in Los Angeles or Delhi, and most of the pollution, it's perfectly legitimate to use public transportation lines: underground, trams, which are eco-friendly, or buses, which are increasingly becoming eco-friendly since an increasing number of them are using natural gas, hydrogen or elec-
