Ukraine is ready to discuss accession to the European Green Deal with the EU

The Ukrainian government seeks to synchronize the national environmental policy with the EU Member States

Ukraine proposed the European Union to discuss its possible accession to the European Green Deal.

This was announced by Prime Minister of Ukraine Oleksiy Goncharuk at his meeting with Frans Timmermans, the Executive Vice President of the European Commission for the European Green Deal.

According to Mr Goncharuk, Ukraine is going to achieve compliance with the EU environmental criteria in five years. That’s why the country needs to harmonize its policies, including the environmental one, with the policies of the EU Member States.

“We propose to kick off a dialogue to develop and improve a common roadmap in the framework of the European Green Deal. The EU’s ambitious goal is to make Europe the first continent of which the economy does not harm the nature by 2050. Ukraine is ready to become an integral part of this success story,” underlines Mr Goncharuk.

The European Green Deal’s target is 50–55% greenhouse gas emissions reduction in the European Union by 2030, and zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

“We are working on our second contribution under the Paris Agreement on climate. Ukraine is also in the process of elaboration of a set of draft laws on introducing the national emissions trading model. We are already bringing the Ukrainian legislation in line with the European standards,” says Mr Goncharuk.

As reported earlier, the Ministry of Energy and Environmental Protection presented a concept of green energy transition of Ukraine until 2050 (Ukraine Green Deal).

The document aims to comply with the Paris Agreement 2015 addressing climate change. The goal of the proposed concept is to cut greenhouse gas emissions to make Ukraine climate-neutral by 2070.

“Ukraine’s ‘green’ transition concept is similar to the European Commission’s European Green Deal. It provides for adoption of the needed laws as well as creation of instruments for funding decarbonization measures with the total budget of €100 billion”, comments Andrii Glushchenko, GMK Center Analyst.

The ‘green’ transition concept provides for the government’s co-funding of research and innovations. The government funding is expected to reach at least 3% of GDP in the long run. However, to make its economy climate neutral, Ukraine has to invest around 5% of GDP annually.