The article was received on March 11, 2021.
In Slovenia, great attention is paid to the improvement of the natural habitat of people. This is initially required by the limited size of the territory inhabited by the Slovenian people, necessitating the intensive use of available land and water resources. At the same time, there is an acute problem of limiting the harmful consequences of human activities for the environment, which worsens the living conditions of people, animals and plants. The national feature of the Slovenes has long been a careful attitude to their personal place of residence, to their small homeland, the wellbeing of which they passionately cared about. Urbanization began to undermine this tradition and led to an outflow of the population from rural areas, which ceased to be settled properly. This forced the state to take measures to stimulate local residents to stay in their native settlements and take care of their arrangement and development, while preserving natural resources and a comfortable environment for people’s lives. Numerous public organizations of the civil society play an important role in this issue. Environmental policy is being implemented in Slovenia within the framework of the general line of the European Union aimed at phasing out carbon fuels and switching to renewable energy sources [6, 7, 12, 13].
The reverent attitude towards natural living conditions has largely contributed to Slovenia’s favorable reception of international events aimed at preventing further deterioration of climatic conditions on Earth. Slovenia, along with other EU countries, joined the Paris Climate Agreement at the end of 2015 and signed the European Green Treaty in 2019. These acts are aimed at reducing emissions of heat-producing gases into the atmosphere by setting quotas on their permissible volumes and crosscountry trade in the saved surpluses. The country willingly supported the environmental and climate policy of the European Union, the goal of which is to phase out hydrocarbon energy sources by 2050 and reduce the emission of heat-producing gases by 55 % by 2030 compared to 1990 levels (previously a lower level of 40 % was set). This implies a gradual transition to the use of renewable energy sources, which, in addition to hydroelectric power plants, also include solar, wind, water and biological energy generators. The latter are considered preferable in relation to hydroelectric power plants, since they allegedly do not cause any harm to the environment [10, 14].