On 18 March 2021, Serbia adopted its first Law on Climate Change, which includes a system for monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) of GHG emissions, paving the way towards a potential future national ETS.
The law’s passage comes more than 2.5 years after the respective bill was firstly proposed and establishes a MRV framework and a GHG emission inventory system. It also aims at mainstreaming Serbia’s climate policies including, for example, low carbon development strategies into the institutional and legal framework. The introduced MRV system mirrors that of the EU ETS and requires Serbia to start monitoring its emissions as of this year. According to Serbia’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the UNFCCC, the country has pledged to reduce its emissions by 9.8% below 1990 levels by 2030.
After Montenegro’s approval of regulations for a future ETS, Serbia is the second country in the Western Balkans to adopt an MRV system.