Comba­ting climate change in Ukraine

Like many people around the globe, young Ukrai­nians are taking their demands to tackle climate change to the streets. Although the country has rati­fied the Paris Agree­ment, its targets are so weak that even reaching them will mean an increase of today’s emis­sion levels. Acti­vists, on the other hand, are trying their best to combat envi­ron­mental issues as Anasta­siia Zubchenko and Jana Borchers report.

„Zberegzit nashe maybutnie!“ is written on a sign held up by a young demons­trator: ​„Save our future!“ On other posters are such slogans as ​„There is no planet B“, as well as the straight­for­ward claim to ​„Give a fuck“. A video of mostly young people taking their demands to the streets and clai­ming action for climate protec­tion was uploaded by the Ukrai­nian national news channel U+A. Around 1,000 protes­ters took part in the climate strike in Kiev on 20^th September 2019, while in parallel ​„Fridays­For­Fu­ture“ demons­tra­tions were taking place in cities all over the world.

Ukrai­ne’s green­house gas emis­sions are more than twice as high as the Euro­pean Union average. Last year, the UN Food and Agri­cul­ture Orga­ni­sa­tion (FAO) reported that climate changes in the Ukraine are happe­ning even faster than in other count­ries, espe­ci­ally affec­ting the large forest areas.

Current climate targets would increase green­house emis­sions

Ukraine has rati­fied the Paris Agree­ment, which includes parti­ci­pa­tion in the long-term goal of keeping the increase in global average tempe­ra­ture below 2° Celsius. The country agreed to redu­cing its green­house emis­sions to 40%, compared to earlier 1990’s levels. However, Ukrai­ne’s emis­sions today are already much lower today than they were in 1990, due mostly to the economic decline after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Reaching 40% of 1990’s levels would ther­e­fore mean an increase in green­house gas emis­sions compared to today.

The young climate protes­ters have come up with various demands for the new govern­ment, among them the calls for chan­ging to 100% rene­wable energy by 2050, for banning the produc­tion of single-use plastic, and for inves­ting in ​„green trans­port“. Oleksiy Orzhel, the new Minister of Energy and Envi­ron­mental Protec­tion since August 2019, seems eager to show his ambi­tion for climate protec­tion. On 20^th September he marched along­side young protes­ters at the climate strike and promised to prepare new laws on climate protec­tion. He also said he wanted to promote recy­cling and reduce the produc­tion of plastic, but didn’t specify on how these objec­tives should be accom­plished.

Acti­vists are initia­ting their own projects

„For me, campaigns like the Climate March are about brin­ging people toge­ther“, says Ksenia Rench­kovs­kaya, head of the Inter­na­tional youth move­ment ​„School Recy­cling World“ in Ukraine. She believes that young Ukrai­nians are incre­asingly thin­king about envi­ron­mental issues. With her project, she addresses the subject of sorting trash and recy­cling in Ukrai­nian schools: ​„We already involved 22.000 students in our projects and 165 tons of recy­cl­ables have been sorted out during the project.“ The students them­selves are respon­sible for orga­ni­zing the sorting, and they are encou­raged to initiate envi­ron­mental actions in their school, village, or city. This year, Rench­kovs­kaya addi­tio­nally visited seven festi­vals in Ukraine where she and her project managed to attract 300 volun­teers who moti­vated and trained people to engage in sorting trash.

The new presi­dent Zelen­skiy, on the other hand, has yet to prove that he is concerned with envi­ron­mental issues. In 2018, the previous govern­ment had published the so-called ​„Low Emis­sion Deve­lo­p­ment Stra­tegy,“ in which it planned to reduce emis­sions to 30 – 34% compared to 1990. This goal should be reached not only by inves­ting in rene­wable energy and moder­ni­zing the trans­port and agri­cul­tural sector, but also by raising public aware­ness about climate change protec­tion. Although, with the new govern­ment in office, it is unclear whether this stra­tegy will be imple­mented, or if the admi­nis­tra­tion might stick to the much weaker aims of the Paris agree­ment.

Last week, however, the parlia­ment announced that they were in the process of crea­ting a so-called ​„Green Office“ that is supposed to develop new laws on things such as waste manage­ment, or on reno­vating buil­dings for them to be more energy-effi­cient. Rench­kovs­kaya thinks that it is neces­sary to bring acti­vists, NGOs, busi­nesses, and the govern­ment toge­ther in order to develop diffe­rent ways of comba­ting climate issues and create lasting change: ​„We want to believe that the initia­tives will be imple­mented. Civil orga­niza­tions like ours help them do that.“ In spite of all exis­ting diffi­cul­ties, she seems hopeful about the future.