By Ben Andoni
Albania was one of the most eager countries to sign the Environmental Treaty in 2015. At that time, 197 countries placed their signatures on the Paris Agreement of 2015, a document that set as its objective the prevention of the global average temperature rising 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The United States immediately joined, but already under Trump’s first presidency, withdrew from the Agreement, which officially came into force on November 4, 2020. Later, President Biden returned the country to the deal on February 19, 2021. Most recently, the United States has once again formally notified the Secretary-General of its withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, an act that will enter into force on January 27, 2026.
This is yet another document that Albania signed almost blindly, without considering the serious measures it was obliged to take. Over the past two decades, the environmental protection community has been constantly appealing—starting with simple but troubling facts and amplifying them—but the “lords of the environment” keep mocking. They mock and mock endlessly. More than a decade ago, warnings were made about the conditions that were causing the sea to swallow land; why fires were becoming a routine occurrence; why we should be alarmed about the desertification of forested areas; about the drying up of water sources; why we had to preserve protected areas; down to the facts concerning fauna and flora—such as how insects that once never crossed our borders were now visiting northern areas; or how, in cities, concrete has become a frightening invader, while meanwhile, “Albanian cities—with Tirana leading—have turned into heat islands, where the temperature differences between neighborhoods reach up to 6°C, due to the density of construction and lack of green spaces, according to a World Bank report” (Monitor, 2025). Not to mention the shrinking of green areas and the erasure of parks and spatial planning. Corruption in urban planning begins precisely with the creation—or alteration—of these spatial plans. We have all this before our very eyes. Just look at what has been done to the Grand Park of the Artificial Lake and where this greed will lead us… And so Albania has been blanketed with towers upon towers that rise endlessly, all while its population shrinks, pushing us back nearly to the demographic levels of post–World War II Albania.
With all this, the real problem is only one: we have grown accustomed to destruction. And now, even as something burns before us, we continue repeating the same mistakes year after year. Where there should be reflection on infrastructure, arsonists amuse themselves with their savagery, while municipalities vegetate without purpose. Meanwhile, Monitor lists a series of factors that must be considered: banks (climate risks for loans), agriculture (changing seasons of cultivation and ripening), industry, and above all, tourism. Albania should not be so at ease with destruction; it should be thinking about survival in the face of nature. But who knows—maybe we deserve destruction.
P.S. The chronicles recorded that for the four arsonists in Berat, the court issued only “mandatory check-ins”?!
(Javanews)