New Stakeholders engage in Ukraine’s Climate Policy Efforts

Last week, Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Ruslan Strilets, together with EU Ambassador to Ukraine Katarina Mathernova, Ambassador of Japan to Ukraine Kuninori Matsuda, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada’s Eco Committee Oleh Bondarenko, and other representatives of diplomatic missions of foreign countries and international organizations, as well as key climate experts, gathered at the Ukrainian Climate Office* to discuss the Ukraine’s climate policy development.

The Minister presented the six-month progress and stressed that the Ministry of Environment continues to gradually build a comprehensive infrastructure for the implementation of climate policy:

“Today, we have an approved Climate Strategy until 2035 and a framework law in the Parliament – the document is fully consistent with the EU’s goals of achieving climate neutrality by 2050. It has already been approved by the specialized Eco-Committee of the Verkhovna Rada. We expect it to be reviewed by the Parliament in the near future,” said Ruslan Strilets.

According to him, the approval of the draft law will be a practical step in the transition from strategy to action to build a climate governance architecture, and all subsequent sectoral documents will be based on this framework law. Meanwhile, the Ministry is also working on a draft law on the functioning of the GHG emissions trading system and the Long-Term Low-Carbon Development Strategy and plans to model economic recovery scenarios in 2024, which will be presented in 2025.

Thus, Ukraine is developing decarbonization tools for business to maintain economic growth and ensure its own contribution to climate change prevention.

The event was organized with the support of the Ukrainian Climate Office, which operates within the framework of the Capacities for Climate Action (C4CA) project, implemented by GIZ on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) within the framework of the International Climate Initiative (ICI) and co-funded by the European Union.