From policy to possibility: A conversation with Sobiah Becker

Climate and energy policy can feel distant from everyday life. Targets, regulations and international commitments may sound abstract, but the decisions behind them shape something very tangible: how energy is produced, how communities adapt, where investment goes, and what kind of economy Kosovo builds for the future.

For the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, supporting Kosovo’s climate and energy transition means working across this entire landscape. Through the German-Kosovo Climate & Energy Partnership, GIZ supports Kosovo in advancing its green ambitions, implementing commitments under the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans, and moving closer to the requirements of EU accession.

The Partnership works national partners using a whole-of-government approach to strengthen climate governance, whole-of-society engagement, from supporting municipalities to develop Municipal Energy and Climate Action Plans, and strengthening Kosovo’s capacity for international climate diplomacy.

At the centre of this work is a question that goes beyond technology: how can the right policy environment, institutions and cooperation make the transition possible?

To explore this question, we spoke with Sobiah Becker, whose career spans from industrial productivity and energy efficiency to renewable energy, climate policy and international climate cooperation.

Meet Sobiah

Sobiah, what brought you to the field of climate and energy, and what motivates you today?

Serendipity would probably be the word I’d use! I started in industrial productivity, helping Pakistan’s textile sector do more with less. Energy followed naturally, then renewables, and from there climate, working with industry to access carbon market mechanisms.

What the textile sector taught me is that a factory can only redesign itself so far. Beyond a certain point, whether renewable power was worth switching to came down to whether the market and the regulations around it made that switch pay off.

So, the real work moved upstream, from the factory floor to the policy environment that decided whether renewable energy was accessible and competitive in the first place. That’s where “planet, people, profit” became more than a phrase for me.

A career across contexts

Your career has taken you across Asia Pacific, the Caribbean and Europe before Kosovo. What has this move given you that you did not expect?

Kosovo has been very welcoming and open, and it is a pleasure to be here! When you move as often as I do, the different contexts start to explain each other. 

Whether it’s an industry owner in Pakistan weighing an efficiency investment, a Caribbean government deciding whether to keep paying into a risk pool for a disaster it hopes never comes, and an official in Kosovo defining a transition pathway – all of them are, structurally, having the same conversation.

Each is being asked to accept a certain cost now against an uncertain benefit later.

So, the unexpected gift of moving has been a method rather than a body of knowledge: knowing which argument travels, which incentive actually moves a decision, and when to stop presenting evidence and start listening.

Turning ambition into action

What does your role in the German-Kosovo Climate & Energy Partnership look like in practice?

Locally, we support municipalities in developing Municipal Energy and Climate Action Plans, making abstract national priorities actionable.

Internationally, we supported Kosovo’s visibility in international for a like its participation in the UNFCCC Climate Week in Baku this month. Baku is also where Kosovo first made the case for its voluntary Nationally Determined Contribution, a choice rather than an obligation, as Kosovo is not yet a Party to the Convention.

My work sits on this spectrum, and the skill it demands is translation, not German to Albanian, but political commitment into technical requirement into something an institution can implement next quarter.

Building the conditions for transition

Can you share how the Partnership is contributing to the energy transition in Kosovo?

The Partnership’s real asset is its convening power. It is a platform for action, bringing together priorities and the people who turn them into reality.

Its contribution does not necessarily show up in megawatts.

What it builds is the environment that decides whether megawatts are possible: institutions able to make their case, secure the finance and absorb it once it arrives.

Kosovo’s opportunity

What do you see as Kosovo’s biggest opportunity in the energy transition?

The biggest opportunity is, in my view, Kosovo’s size. Small systems are often seen as too small a grid, with too little domestic capital.

But what actually matters isn’t size. It is whether a country moves before the old system’s habits harden, and whether it plugs into regional markets instead of trying to solve everything alone.

The EU acquis makes regional energy market integration a requirement, not an aspiration. That requirement is also the opportunity: access to a larger market, shared balancing capacity, and investment that a small standalone system would struggle to attract.

Alongside that sits Kosovo’s renewable potential, solar in particular, and the policy tools that make it usable rather than theoretical. Net metering, for example, lets households and businesses actually participate, not just observe.

What excites me most is what comes next. Microgrids, storage and other distributed solutions could let Kosovo build its energy system in a new shape, rather than retrofitting one designed for a different century.

Kosovo doesn’t have to choose between being small and being ready. The two can be the same thing.

Looking towards 2031

If we spoke again in five years, what would you hope to be able to say has changed?

Future me would hope that the climate and energy transition stopped being a donor agenda and became simply how Kosovo plans its economy.

Concretely: the 2031 targets met or clearly within reach, renewables integrated into a grid actually built for them, storage operating at scale, and at least one coal unit retired with its workforce moved into work they chose rather than work they accepted.

Above all, I would like Kosovo’s own institutions to be recognised for the technical depth they have built over time and with conviction.

Planet, people, profit in harmony for a climate-resilient future worth having.