From Climate Commitments to Investment: Financing NDC Implementation – Lessons from Ukraine and Other Countries

On 13 Novem­ber 2026, the pan­el dis­cus­sion “From Com­mit­ment to Action: Align­ing NDC Imple­men­ta­tion with Cli­mate Finance in Ukraine, Türkiye, Alba­nia and Moldo­va”, organ­ised by the IKI Inter­face Ukraine project (GIZ), took place at the Ukrain­ian Pavil­ion at COP31. 

Par­tic­i­pants explored how to trans­late Nation­al­ly Deter­mined Con­tri­bu­tions (NDCs) into con­crete invest­ment projects, which finan­cial instru­ments can sup­port their imple­men­ta­tion, and what con­di­tions are need­ed to mobilise pub­lic and pri­vate cap­i­tal. Par­tic­u­lar atten­tion was giv­en to the chal­lenges fac­ing Ukraine, which must pur­sue its cli­mate com­mit­ments while recov­er­ing from Russia’s full-scale war.

Ukraine: Assessing Financing Needs and Market Opportunities

The Ukrain­ian per­spec­tive was pre­sent­ed by Yevhenii Moroz from the Min­istry of Econ­o­my and Envi­ron­ment of Ukraine, along­side Roman Podoliets and Yevhen Bub­lik from the Insti­tute for Eco­nom­ics and Fore­cast­ing of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of Ukraine.

Dur­ing their pre­sen­ta­tions, the speak­ers dis­cussed the devel­op­ment of a financ­ing strat­e­gy for imple­ment­ing Ukraine’s sec­ond Nation­al­ly Deter­mined Con­tri­bu­tion (NDC 2). The strat­e­gy involves a com­pre­hen­sive assess­ment of Ukraine’s finan­cial mar­ket, exist­ing sup­port pro­grammes and instru­ments, bar­ri­ers to mobil­is­ing invest­ment, and sec­tor-spe­cif­ic financ­ing needs.

Accord­ing to an assess­ment pre­pared by experts from the Insti­tute for Eco­nom­ics and Fore­cast­ing of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of Ukraine with­in the IKI Inter­face Ukraine project (GIZ), Ukraine will need approx­i­mate­ly EUR 130 bil­lion in invest­ment to achieve its cli­mate tar­gets by 2035 under the cur­rent mea­sures sce­nario. Imple­ment­ing addi­tion­al mea­sures would require a fur­ther EUR 66 bil­lion in financ­ing.

To assess the oppor­tu­ni­ties offered by the finan­cial mar­ket, an ana­lyt­i­cal data­base cov­er­ing 99 finan­cial instru­ments and pro­grammes has been devel­oped. It includes direct invest­ment, incen­tive mech­a­nisms and tech­ni­cal assis­tance instru­ments designed to strength­en the pri­vate sector’s capac­i­ty to access afford­able financ­ing.

Ukrain­ian rep­re­sen­ta­tives also out­lined key areas of cli­mate pol­i­cy devel­op­ment, includ­ing the update of the Nation­al Ener­gy and Cli­mate Plan (NECP), prepa­ra­tions for intro­duc­ing a green­house gas emis­sions trad­ing sys­tem in line with EU stan­dards, the devel­op­ment of mech­a­nisms under Arti­cle 6 of the Paris Agree­ment, and the estab­lish­ment of a leg­isla­tive frame­work for a green tax­on­o­my.

These efforts are intend­ed to inte­grate cli­mate objec­tives into recov­ery plans, pub­lic invest­ment deci­sions and Ukraine’s long-term eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment strate­gies. At the same time, the full-scale war cre­ates con­sid­er­able uncer­tain­ty for long-term plan­ning, mak­ing mea­sures essen­tial to the country’s eco­nom­ic resilience and recov­ery an imme­di­ate pri­or­i­ty.

Türkiye: From Economic Modelling to Industrial Decarbonisation

Türkiye’s expe­ri­ence was pre­sent­ed by Mer­al Mungan Arda, Cli­mate and Envi­ron­ment Port­fo­lio Man­ag­er at UNDP Türkiye, who spoke about sup­port for the prepa­ra­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of the country’s Nation­al­ly Deter­mined Con­tri­bu­tions.

In prepar­ing its third Nation­al­ly Deter­mined Con­tri­bu­tion (NDC 3.0), Türkiye applied eco­nom­ic mod­el­ling and strength­ened the capac­i­ty of rel­e­vant gov­ern­ment insti­tu­tions. This laid the ground­work for fur­ther cli­mate plan­ning and the imple­men­ta­tion of cli­mate mea­sures.

Key pri­or­i­ties for imple­ment­ing NDC 3.0 include deep decar­bon­i­sa­tion of indus­try, par­tic­u­lar­ly fer­tilis­er pro­duc­tion, through the use of hydro­gen tech­nolo­gies and car­bon cap­ture and util­i­sa­tion solu­tions. Anoth­er pri­or­i­ty is reduc­ing emis­sions from the waste man­age­ment sec­tor by intro­duc­ing mod­ern prac­tices and Zero Waste approach­es.

The dis­cus­sion also high­light­ed the impor­tance of inter­na­tion­al tech­ni­cal assis­tance in get­ting inno­v­a­tive pilot projects off the ground. These projects are expect­ed to serve as mod­els that can sub­se­quent­ly be scaled up with sup­port from nation­al finan­cial insti­tu­tions and pri­vate investors.

Albania: Integrating Climate Objectives into Public Policy and Investment

Joel Skën­der­aj from Albania’s Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment pre­sent­ed the country’s expe­ri­ence in imple­ment­ing its cli­mate com­mit­ments fol­low­ing the adop­tion of NDC 3.0. Alba­nia is now focus­ing on trans­lat­ing its cli­mate tar­gets into action while align­ing its cli­mate pol­i­cy with the EU acces­sion process.

The country’s main pri­or­i­ties include accel­er­at­ing the ener­gy tran­si­tion through the devel­op­ment of renew­able ener­gy, improv­ing ener­gy effi­cien­cy and intro­duc­ing sus­tain­able trans­port solu­tions. Cli­mate change adap­ta­tion is anoth­er impor­tant area, par­tic­u­lar­ly in address­ing the risks of wild­fires and floods, which affect agri­cul­ture, water resources and local com­mu­ni­ties.

Achiev­ing these objec­tives requires cli­mate pri­or­i­ties to be inte­grat­ed into sec­toral strate­gies, pub­lic invest­ment process­es and medi­um-term bud­get plan­ning.

Key chal­lenges include lim­it­ed insti­tu­tion­al and tech­ni­cal capac­i­ty at both cen­tral and region­al lev­els, as well as the need for robust cost-ben­e­fit analy­ses, fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies and clear financ­ing mech­a­nisms. Build­ing a pipeline of invest­ment-ready projects with mea­sur­able results also remains an impor­tant task.

Moldova: EU Integration as a Driver of Climate Investment

Moldova’s expe­ri­ence was pre­sent­ed by Inga Podor­ogh­in from GIZ Moldo­va. She not­ed that over the past five years, the coun­try has made sig­nif­i­cant progress in its green tran­si­tion and cli­mate pol­i­cy. The EU acces­sion process has been a major dri­ver of these changes, accel­er­at­ing reforms across var­i­ous sec­tors and sup­port­ing the align­ment of nation­al leg­is­la­tion with Euro­pean stan­dards and cli­mate objec­tives.

Accord­ing to Inga Podor­ogh­in, more than USD 2 bil­lion has been invest­ed in Moldova’s agri­cul­ture, waste man­age­ment, water sup­ply, trans­port and ener­gy sec­tors over the past five years. These invest­ments direct­ly sup­port the country’s efforts to reduce emis­sions, adapt to cli­mate change and meet its Nation­al­ly Deter­mined Con­tri­bu­tion (NDC) com­mit­ments.

Moldo­va is grad­u­al­ly inte­grat­ing cli­mate objec­tives into pub­lic invest­ment plan­ning and financ­ing process­es. The NDC and the Nation­al Ener­gy and Cli­mate Plan pro­vide strate­gic direc­tion for cli­mate pol­i­cy and help ensure that cli­mate pri­or­i­ties are reflect­ed in invest­ment deci­sions.

One exam­ple high­light­ed by the speak­er was the Reform and Growth Facil­i­ty for Moldo­va, fund­ed by the EU. At least 37% of invest­ment projects under this facil­i­ty must con­tribute to cli­mate objec­tives. In the munic­i­pal sol­id waste man­age­ment sec­tor, invest­ments mobilised from Euro­pean inter­na­tion­al finan­cial insti­tu­tions include mea­sures to reduce methane emis­sions from land­fills, along­side mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems to track emis­sion reduc­tions.

Inga Podor­ogh­in also high­light­ed devel­op­ments in the ener­gy sec­tor. A clear strate­gic and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work has helped attract sig­nif­i­cant invest­ment in ener­gy effi­cien­cy, renew­able ener­gy and elec­tric­i­ty grid mod­erni­sa­tion. At the same time, Moldo­va is devel­op­ing its own finan­cial mech­a­nisms, includ­ing the EcoV­ouch­er pro­gramme, which sup­ports house­holds in replac­ing old appli­ances with ener­gy-effi­cient alter­na­tives, and the Green Home pro­gramme, which aims to improve the ener­gy effi­cien­cy of res­i­den­tial build­ings.

From Climate Plans to Investment: The Role of Coordination and Partnerships

Joaquim Leite, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the NDC Part­ner­ship, focused on how coun­tries can turn cli­mate plans into con­crete invest­ment deci­sions.

He empha­sised the impor­tance of embed­ding cli­mate objec­tives in a country’s broad­er eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment strat­e­gy. NDC imple­men­ta­tion should not be treat­ed as a stand­alone process: cli­mate pri­or­i­ties need to be reflect­ed in eco­nom­ic deci­sion-mak­ing, pub­lic bud­get plan­ning and invest­ment strate­gies.

This requires close coop­er­a­tion between min­istries of econ­o­my and finance, sec­toral min­istries, cen­tral banks and oth­er insti­tu­tions that influ­ence the allo­ca­tion of pub­lic resources and the mobil­i­sa­tion of pri­vate cap­i­tal.

The dis­cus­sion also high­light­ed the impor­tance of engag­ing poten­tial investors and inter­na­tion­al finan­cial insti­tu­tions at an ear­ly stage in the devel­op­ment of cli­mate plans and invest­ment pro­grammes. This allows coun­tries to assess risks in advance, iden­ti­fy nec­es­sary reg­u­la­to­ry changes and tai­lor projects to the require­ments of dif­fer­ent financ­ing sources.

Inter­na­tion­al knowl­edge exchange is anoth­er impor­tant fac­tor. Coop­er­a­tion between coun­tries fac­ing sim­i­lar eco­nom­ic con­di­tions and chal­lenges helps iden­ti­fy prac­ti­cal solu­tions, draw lessons from suc­cess­ful approach­es and adapt them to nation­al con­texts.

From Plans to Tangible Results

The dis­cus­sion demon­strat­ed that suc­cess­ful NDC imple­men­ta­tion depends not only on the ambi­tion of cli­mate tar­gets but also on the abil­i­ty to trans­late them into con­crete invest­ment deci­sions. This requires clear financ­ing strate­gies, coher­ent pub­lic poli­cies, well-pre­pared projects and effec­tive coop­er­a­tion between gov­ern­ments, busi­ness­es and inter­na­tion­al part­ners.

For Ukraine, this is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant. Cli­mate action must become an inte­gral part of the country’s green recov­ery, the mod­erni­sa­tion of its indus­try and ener­gy sec­tor, and its Euro­pean inte­gra­tion.

The event was organ­ised by the project “IKI Inter­face: Sup­port­ing Ukraine towards Ambi­tious and Inte­grat­ed Cli­mate Pol­i­cy (Green Ukraine)”. The project is imple­ment­ed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Action, Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Nuclear Safe­ty (BMUKN) under the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI), in coop­er­a­tion with the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment and Agri­cul­ture of Ukraine.