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<DIV class=gmail_quote>Ukraine's 'extremely weak' climate ambition may soon
rise<BR><BR>Jean Chemnick, E&E News reporter <BR><BR>Published: Thursday,
September 26, 2019<BR><BR>Ukraine's position on climate action is
complicated.<BR><BR>Thirty years ago, the Eastern European country involuntarily
made one of<BR>the largest contributions to climate mitigation ever when the
Soviet<BR>Union it was part of collapsed — and with it its industrial base
and<BR>economy.<BR><BR>But as urgency around the world's response to climate
change has<BR>intensified in recent years, Ukraine and other post-Soviet
countries<BR>have maintained they deserve room to grow their emissions as
they<BR>rebuild their economies.<BR><BR>Ukraine's nationally determined
contribution, or NDC, to the Paris<BR>Agreement called for reducing emissions at
least 40% compared with 1990<BR>levels by 2030. That's identical to the European
Union's commitment,<BR>which is considered one of the world's
strongest.<BR><BR>But Ukraine in 1990 was one of the world's highest-emitting
countries,<BR>responsible for 880 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent. In
2017, it<BR>released 310 megatons, about 0.7% of the world's
emissions.<BR><BR>"If you compare [the Ukrainian NDC] to 1990, it's of course
one of the<BR>strongest," said Oldag Caspar, who does work in Ukraine for
Germanwatch.<BR>"If you compare it to actual emissions, it's one of the
weakest."<BR><BR>Caspar said Ukraine has traditionally maintained that its
people have<BR>paid for their country's current low emissions levels with
substantial<BR>economic suffering. They should be credited against future
obligations.<BR><BR>But the tide in Ukraine may be turning. A confluence of
economic and<BR>political factors, together with climate concerns, have led the
country<BR>to seek alternatives to coal and natural gas, and raised interest
in<BR>aligning renewable energy and climate objectives more closely with
the<BR>European Union.<BR><BR>Ukraine was one of the first countries to submit a
low-carbon pathway<BR>for 2050 to the United Nations last year. But it wasn't
very ambitious.<BR>It promised only to cut emissions in half by midcentury, when
scientists<BR>say the world's emissions should be net zero.<BR><BR>Irina
Stavchuk, executive director of the Centre for Environmental<BR>Initiatives, the
country's largest environmental nongovernmental<BR>organization, acknowledged
that the 2030 target was "extremely weak."<BR>But she noted that it was produced
and presented to the Ukrainian<BR>government by experts from the U.N.
Development Programme.<BR><BR>"The country was just in the middle of the strong
war with Russia, so it<BR>was communicated as 'we cannot take higher obligations
in this<BR>uncertainty,'" said Stavchuk in an email to E&E News.<BR><BR>But
Ukrainian and international environmentalists asserted that the<BR>conflict with
Russia over the annexation of Crimea makes energy<BR>efficiency and renewable
energy development more urgent, not less.<BR>Russia indirectly supplies a
substantial portion of Ukraine's gas. And<BR>when delegates were gathered
outside Paris in December 2015 to complete<BR>work on the climate deal, Ukraine
faced a winter with no coal supplies<BR>from Russia or the occupied areas to
provide heat.<BR><BR>In a letter to the U.N. climate body in 2015, environmental
groups noted<BR>that UNDP gave the Ukrainian government four options for its
2015 Paris<BR>pledge, which ranged from a 7% to 43% increase in emissions
between 2012<BR>and 2030.<BR><BR>"We consider the [intended nationally
determined contribution] proposal<BR>developed by the UNDP office in Ukraine for
consideration of government<BR>as misleading, politically biased and one, which
does not contribute to<BR>transition of Ukraine to low carbon development," the
letter states.<BR><BR>The NGOs noted that existing Ukrainian energy law is much
more<BR>ambitious. Climate Action Tracker, a watchdog group that assesses
the<BR>ambition of Paris commitments, rates Ukraine's pledge
"critically<BR>insufficient." But it makes the same point: that if Ukraine
simply<BR>carries out policies that are already on the books, it
will<BR>substantially overachieve its climate commitment.<BR><BR>The U.S. Agency
for International Development provided the Ukrainian<BR>government with support
for its 2050 decarbonization strategy, which it<BR>submitted to the U.N. climate
body in July 2018.<BR><BR>"Although they tried to do the process as inclusively
as possible, so<BR>all experts and NGOs could participate, for policymakers it
was<BR>something additional to existing, officially approved
strategy<BR>documents," said Stavchuk.<BR><BR>The 2050 strategy shows one way
the country could develop, she said.<BR><BR>Ukraine has the capacity to develop
with an increased focus on renewable<BR>energy, Caspar said. It has land to
install wind power and solar<BR>equipment, and has even begun exporting wind
turbines to the European<BR>Union.<BR><BR>"Renewable energy is seen in Ukraine
as something not only modern and<BR>future-driven — especially by the younger
generation, of course, and the<BR>younger generation of decisionmakers and
experts and journalists and so<BR>on — but it's also seen as something European,
and something which opens<BR>the door to Brussels and to a better and more
intense relationship with<BR>the E.U.," he said.<BR><BR>Ukraine's new president,
Volodymyr Zelensky, has been in the news this<BR>week for his July phone call
with President Trump, in which Trump asked<BR>him to investigate the son of
former Vice President and Democratic<BR>presidential front-runner Joe
Biden.<BR><BR>Zelensky was elected earlier this year, and some of his policy
positions<BR>are still unclear. But greens see hopeful signs. For one thing,
Ukraine<BR>confirmed at a U.N. climate gathering in New York City on Monday that
it<BR>would strengthen its NDC next year. It's one of only 59 countries
that<BR>have agreed to do so.<BR><BR>Stavchuk said the process of revising the
NDC began early this year. It<BR>will use as its baseline a newly approved
energy strategy that skews<BR>more closely to Ukraine's current emissions, she
said.<BR><BR>"So the NDC should be more ambitious than the previous one,"
said<BR>Stavchuk.<BR><BR>Another hopeful sign, Caspar said, has to do with
Stavchuk herself. If<BR>confirmed by Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers today, the
environmentalist<BR>will become the nation's new deputy minister of energy and
the<BR>environment. Her boss, the minister, hails from the country's
largest<BR>renewable energy trade association.<BR><BR>"The Energy Ministry was
famous for being the coal ministry, and nuclear<BR>as well, but mostly coal,"
said Caspar. "This is a signal."<BR><BR>-- CAN-talk Listserv | <A
href="mailto:CAN-talk@listi.jpberlin.de"
target=_blank>CAN-talk@listi.jpberlin.de</A> | <A
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CAN members unless otherwise stated. -- Subscribe to CAN's ECO Newsletter @ <A
href="http://climatenetwork.org/eco-newsletters" rel=noreferrer
target=_blank>http://climatenetwork.org/eco-newsletters</A> --<BR></DIV><BR
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<DIV><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13px">Best regards,</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px">Tatiana
Shauro</SPAN></DIV>
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<DIV class=gmail_quote>
<DIV dir=ltr class=gmail_attr>От: <STRONG dir=auto class=gmail_sendername>Fred
Heutte</STRONG> <SPAN dir=auto><<A
href="mailto:phred@sunlightdata.com">phred@sunlightdata.com</A>></SPAN><BR>Date:
пт, 27 сент. 2019 г. в 07:30<BR>Subject: [CAN-talk] E&E: Ukraine's
'extremely weak' climate ambition may soon rise<BR><FONT size=2
face=Arial></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B></B> </DIV>
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=tshauro@climatenetwork.org
href="mailto:tshauro@climatenetwork.org">Tatiana Shauro</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, September 29, 2019 9:43 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> [can-eecca] Ukraine's 'extremely weak' climate ambition may
soon rise</DIV></DIV>
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