A step toward the EU: German solutions for Ukraine

From Novem­ber 25–27, a Ukrain­ian del­e­ga­tion vis­it­ed Ger­many to explore best prac­tices in green­house gas emis­sions mon­i­tor­ing, report­ing, and ver­i­fi­ca­tion (MRV) and cre­at­ing a nation­al emis­sions trad­ing scheme (ETS).

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment and Agri­cul­ture of Ukraine, the Nation­al Accred­i­ta­tion Agency of Ukraine (NAAU), the BI “NCI,” and the Euro­pean Green Deal Unit met with the Ger­man Accred­i­ta­tion Body (DAkkS) in Berlin.

Ger­man experts shared their expe­ri­ence with Euro­pean approach­es to the accred­i­ta­tion of ver­i­fi­ca­tion bod­ies under the EU ETS, and the lat­est require­ments for imple­ment­ing the Car­bon Bor­der Adjust­ment Mech­a­nism (CBAM).

As part of the study vis­it, Wern­er Bet­zen­bich­ler, an inter­na­tion­al EU ETS ver­i­fi­ca­tion expert, shared valu­able insights into how Ger­man pub­lic author­i­ties, oper­a­tors, and ver­i­fiers col­lab­o­rate with­in the EU.

Par­tic­i­pants vis­it­ed the Berlin-Neukölln CHP plant to observe cut­ting-edge tech­nolo­gies for emis­sions reduc­tion and see MRV and EU ETS sys­tems oper­ate in real con­di­tions.

A key high­light was the vis­it to CEMEX Deutsch­land AG, one of Germany’s largest cement man­u­fac­tur­ers, where the del­e­ga­tion learned about inno­v­a­tive Ger­man approach­es to low­er­ing emis­sions, improv­ing ener­gy effi­cien­cy, and imple­ment­ing the EU’s first car­bon cap­ture and stor­age (CCS) project.

The par­tic­i­pants also reviewed Euro­pean stan­dards and poli­cies by the Ger­man Emis­sions Trad­ing Author­i­ty (DEHSt) to fur­ther improve Ukraine’s MVR pol­i­cy and devel­op the nation­al ETS.

Adopt­ing Euro­pean stan­dards for MRV is a cru­cial step for Ukraine on its path toward EU inte­gra­tion.

The study vis­it was orga­nized with­in the project “Sup­port for the estab­lish­ment of an emis­sions trad­ing scheme (ETS) in Ukraine”, com­mis­sioned by the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Action, Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Nuclear Safe­ty (BMUKN) and imple­ment­ed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH in part­ner­ship with the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment and Agri­cul­ture of Ukraine.