In a joint statement on Wednesday four NGOs were critical that Slovenia's environmental plans leave out the TEŠ thermal power plant. "The draft allows for decades of coal burning at TEŠ," the press release said.

The NGOs believe that Slovenia should include in the plan the goal of giving up coal by 2030. "Governments that are serious about addressing the climate crisis plan coal-fired thermal power plants to close by 2030. Ours plans to burn coal until 2050," Barbara Kavc of the Focus NGO said in the statement.

Katja Huš of Greenpeace Slovenija said that any decarbonisation plans allowing coal burning until 2050 are rubish.

"The plan will be adopted by the Marjan Šarec government and considering the importance of this document, he should not be shifting responsibility to future governments. The document should include a clear political obligation to give up coal in Slovenia in the next ten years," Huš added.

Meanwhile, environmental law expert Senka Šifkovič Vrbica of the Legal and Information Centre of NGOs, pointed to the right to a healthy environment which must be provided by the state.

Andrej Gnezda of the Umanotera NGO meanwhile said that expensive and untested solutions, like carbon capture or waste co-incineration, which the local population opposes, would only extend uncertainty of the people living nearby.

The draft National Energy and Climate Plan remains in public debate until the end of the week.