*[Enwl-eng] [can-eecca] Ukraine's 'extremely weak' climate ambition may soon rise

[ENWL]

Ukraine's 'extremely weak' climate ambition may soon rise

Jean Chemnick, E&E News reporter

Published: Thursday, September 26, 2019

Ukraine's position on climate action is complicated.

Thirty years ago, the Eastern European country involuntarily made one of
the largest contributions to climate mitigation ever when the Soviet
Union it was part of collapsed — and with it its industrial base and
economy.

But as urgency around the world's response to climate change has
intensified in recent years, Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries
have maintained they deserve room to grow their emissions as they
rebuild their economies.

Ukraine's nationally determined contribution, or NDC, to the Paris
Agreement called for reducing emissions at least 40% compared with 1990
levels by 2030. That's identical to the European Union's commitment,
which is considered one of the world's strongest.

But Ukraine in 1990 was one of the world's highest-emitting countries,
responsible for 880 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent. In 2017, it
released 310 megatons, about 0.7% of the world's emissions.

"If you compare [the Ukrainian NDC] to 1990, it's of course one of the
strongest," said Oldag Caspar, who does work in Ukraine for Germanwatch.
"If you compare it to actual emissions, it's one of the weakest."

Caspar said Ukraine has traditionally maintained that its people have
paid for their country's current low emissions levels with substantial
economic suffering. They should be credited against future obligations.

But the tide in Ukraine may be turning. A confluence of economic and
political factors, together with climate concerns, have led the country
to seek alternatives to coal and natural gas, and raised interest in
aligning renewable energy and climate objectives more closely with the
European Union.

Ukraine was one of the first countries to submit a low-carbon pathway
for 2050 to the United Nations last year. But it wasn't very ambitious.
It promised only to cut emissions in half by midcentury, when scientists
say the world's emissions should be net zero.

Irina Stavchuk, executive director of the Centre for Environmental
Initiatives, the country's largest environmental nongovernmental
organization, acknowledged that the 2030 target was "extremely weak."
But she noted that it was produced and presented to the Ukrainian
government by experts from the U.N. Development Programme.

"The country was just in the middle of the strong war with Russia, so it
was communicated as 'we cannot take higher obligations in this
uncertainty,'" said Stavchuk in an email to E&E News.

But Ukrainian and international environmentalists asserted that the
conflict with Russia over the annexation of Crimea makes energy
efficiency and renewable energy development more urgent, not less.
Russia indirectly supplies a substantial portion of Ukraine's gas. And
when delegates were gathered outside Paris in December 2015 to complete
work on the climate deal, Ukraine faced a winter with no coal supplies
from Russia or the occupied areas to provide heat.

In a letter to the U.N. climate body in 2015, environmental groups noted
that UNDP gave the Ukrainian government four options for its 2015 Paris
pledge, which ranged from a 7% to 43% increase in emissions between 2012
and 2030.

"We consider the [intended nationally determined contribution] proposal
developed by the UNDP office in Ukraine for consideration of government
as misleading, politically biased and one, which does not contribute to
transition of Ukraine to low carbon development," the letter states.

The NGOs noted that existing Ukrainian energy law is much more
ambitious. Climate Action Tracker, a watchdog group that assesses the
ambition of Paris commitments, rates Ukraine's pledge "critically
insufficient." But it makes the same point: that if Ukraine simply
carries out policies that are already on the books, it will
substantially overachieve its climate commitment.

The U.S. Agency for International Development provided the Ukrainian
government with support for its 2050 decarbonization strategy, which it
submitted to the U.N. climate body in July 2018.

"Although they tried to do the process as inclusively as possible, so
all experts and NGOs could participate, for policymakers it was
something additional to existing, officially approved strategy
documents," said Stavchuk.

The 2050 strategy shows one way the country could develop, she said.

Ukraine has the capacity to develop with an increased focus on renewable
energy, Caspar said. It has land to install wind power and solar
equipment, and has even begun exporting wind turbines to the European
Union.

"Renewable energy is seen in Ukraine as something not only modern and
future-driven — especially by the younger generation, of course, and the
younger generation of decisionmakers and experts and journalists and so
on — but it's also seen as something European, and something which opens
the door to Brussels and to a better and more intense relationship with
the E.U.," he said.

Ukraine's new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has been in the news this
week for his July phone call with President Trump, in which Trump asked
him to investigate the son of former Vice President and Democratic
presidential front-runner Joe Biden.

Zelensky was elected earlier this year, and some of his policy positions
are still unclear. But greens see hopeful signs. For one thing, Ukraine
confirmed at a U.N. climate gathering in New York City on Monday that it
would strengthen its NDC next year. It's one of only 59 countries that
have agreed to do so.

Stavchuk said the process of revising the NDC began early this year. It
will use as its baseline a newly approved energy strategy that skews
more closely to Ukraine's current emissions, she said.

"So the NDC should be more ambitious than the previous one," said
Stavchuk.

Another hopeful sign, Caspar said, has to do with Stavchuk herself. If
confirmed by Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers today, the environmentalist
will become the nation's new deputy minister of energy and the
environment. Her boss, the minister, hails from the country's largest
renewable energy trade association.

"The Energy Ministry was famous for being the coal ministry, and nuclear
as well, but mostly coal," said Caspar. "This is a signal."

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Best regards,
Tatiana Shauro
I support #FridaysForFuture. Lets Unite behind the science.



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От: Fred Heutte <phred at sunlightdata.com>
Date: пт, 27 сент. 2019 г. в 07:30
Subject: [CAN-talk] E&E: Ukraine's 'extremely weak' climate ambition may 
soon rise


From: Tatiana Shauro
Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2019 9:43 PM
Subject: [can-eecca] Ukraine's 'extremely weak' climate ambition may soon 
rise



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