Making the Euro­pean Green Deal happen. Ukraine’s impact on a climate-neutral continent

Ralf Fücks

The Euro­pean Green Deal will have a signi­fi­cant impact on our rela­ti­ons with other count­ries. This is an oppor­tu­nity for enhan­ced coope­ra­tion, but also for poten­tial con­flict with our trading part­ners. To become effec­tive and suc­cessful, the Euro­pean Green Deal should actively engage the Eastern neigh­bor­hood count­ries, espe­ci­ally Ukraine as the biggest Eastern Part­ner­ship country.

For Ukraine, it’s even more clear than for Western Euro­pean count­ries: the tran­si­tion towards an eco-fri­endly economy must go along with rising living stan­dards, eco­no­mic growth, and social pro­gress. We think that Ukraine should look at the Euro­pean Green Deal as an oppor­tu­nity for eco­no­mic moder­niza­tion. Vice versa, the EU should look at Ukraine as a partner in gree­ning the Euro­pean economy and an asset in terms of rene­wa­ble energy sources.

If you look at Ukraine’s CO2 emis­si­ons, you get a puz­zling picture: On the one hand, CO2 emis­si­ons per capita are only half the emis­si­ons in Germany: roughly 4,5 t per person com­pared to 9 t in Germany. And if you look to the history of CO2 emis­si­ons in Ukraine, it seems an impres­sive success story: From more than 16 tons per capita in 1989 to 4.5 tons today.

Lesia Vasy­l­enko

Ukrai­nian budget is mostly direc­ted at the support of tra­di­tio­nal indus­tries, rather than at envi­ron­men­tal issues since big indus­trial groups high­light an acute need to streng­then the economy in view of the ongoing war and pan­de­mic crises. The budget of the country reflects the policy and the approach to climate change.

Nord Stream 2 poses a great danger not only to Ukraine but also to Euro­pean energy inde­pen­dence and to various envi­ron­men­tal aspects, which the EU has been advo­ca­ting for – it des­troys bio­di­ver­sity throug­hout Europe. Pro­mo­ting envi­ron­men­tal issues, we need to be sus­tainable in words and actions, and we need a plan, which balan­ces eco­no­mic, inter­na­tio­nal, and envi­ron­men­tal inte­rests. An important exter­nal aspect of the Green Deal is pro­mo­ting the notion in Ukraine that the Green Deal is a secu­rity matter.

Ukraine can become a success story, where rene­wa­bles and nuclear sector balance each another. The nuclear poten­tial of Ukraine is already there, however, the exis­ting faci­li­ties need to be moder­ni­zed in accordance with inter­nal laws, inter­na­tio­nal obli­ga­ti­ons and in line with envi­ron­men­tal policy.

For Ukraine, as a tra­di­tio­nally agra­rian country, it is a key to remain this way, however, agri­cul­tu­ral prac­ti­ces should be sus­tainable. The land reform (pri­va­tiza­tion of agri­cul­tu­ral lands) in Ukraine must be environmentalized.

Olek­sandr Diachuk

Ukraine’s agri­cul­tu­ral indus­try has very high green­house emis­si­ons and is a huge sector to be modernized.

The capital expen­dit­ures for nuclear energy in Ukraine are rising, while the costs of rene­wa­bles are decli­ning. So, in the long-term per­spec­tive, rene­wa­ble energy should play a bigger role.

The demand for high-quality agri­cul­tu­ral pro­ducts will be incre­asing. Ukraine should seize the oppor­tu­nity and export less raw, but more pro­ces­sed agri­cul­tu­ral products.

Georg Zach­mann

EU part­ners must be ambi­tious in helping Ukraine to set regu­la­tory anchors to increase the pre­dic­ta­bi­lity of its envi­ron­men­tal and eco­no­mic policies.