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IKI in Ukraine

Ukrainian-German Cooperation for Climate Action, Adapting to Climate Change, Conserving Natural Carbon Sinks and Preserving Biodiversity

In the years pri­or to the full-scale Russ­ian war of aggres­sion, Ukraine con­tin­u­ous­ly increased its cli­mate action ambi­tions despite the dif­fi­cult secu­ri­ty, polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion that already pre­vailed even then. On 31 July 2021, Ukraine sub­mit­ted its updat­ed NDC tar­get, in which the 2030 tar­get is sig­nif­i­cant­ly strength­ened. Ukraine’s GHG emis­sions (includ­ing land use, land-use change and forestry — LULUCF) are to be reduced by 65 per cent below the 1990 lev­els by 2030. The goal is to also achieve cli­mate neu­tral­i­ty by 2060 at the lat­est. Ukraine has been a mem­ber of the NDC part­ner­ship since June 2019.

The coun­try has devel­oped a strat­e­gy for ecosafe­ty and cli­mate change adap­ta­tion by 2030. The imple­men­ta­tion of the strat­e­gy aims to ful­fil Ukraine’s inter­na­tion­al com­mit­ments under the Paris Agree­ment regard­ing the mit­i­ga­tion of green­house gas emis­sions and adap­ta­tion to the impacts of glob­al cli­mate change.

In 1995, Ukraine rat­i­fied the Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty (CBD) and joined the Carta­ge­na Pro­to­col in 2003. The Nation­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Strat­e­gy and Action Plan (NBSAP) was sub­mit­ted in 2010.

In the past, elec­tri­cal and ther­mal ener­gy in Ukraine was pri­mar­i­ly pro­duced from coal, gas and nuclear pow­er. So far, the Russ­ian war of aggres­sion has also destroyed about 60 per cent of the pow­er plant capac­i­ties, so that ener­gy has now become very scarce and expen­sive. This also has an impact on the ener­gy-inten­sive steel indus­try, which used to be one of the coun­try’s most impor­tant eco­nom­ic sec­tors. When recon­struc­tion begins, the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment is plan­ning to focus strong­ly on renew­able ener­gies. How­ev­er, it is impor­tant to improve ener­gy effi­cien­cy in build­ings, the cen­tral heat sup­ply and indus­try at the same time. Due to the coun­try’s large agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor, there is a lot of bio­mass avail­able that can make a sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tion to sus­tain­able ener­gy sup­ply.

The IKI in Ukraine

The extent of envi­ron­men­tal dam­age result­ing from the war is dif­fi­cult to esti­mate at the moment, also because some regions are tem­porar­i­ly occu­pied or are sub­ject to ongo­ing mil­i­tary oper­a­tions. Not only land mines pose a cen­tral risk fac­tor, but also envi­ron­men­tal dam­age result­ing from chem­i­cals, resid­ual war­fare mate­ri­als and heavy met­als — both for agri­cul­ture and for recon­struc­tion.

The start of the large-scale war of aggres­sion by the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion in Feb­ru­ary 2022 was accom­pa­nied by Russ­ian air raids through­out the coun­try and an inva­sion by Russ­ian ground troops — and expand­ed the scope of the inva­sion of the Don­bass region that has been con­tin­u­ing since 2014. At first, the project work of the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive was severe­ly impaired. In the mean­time, many projects have been able to resume their work and are able to con­tin­ue thanks to the high lev­el of moti­va­tion of the Ukrain­ian part­ners. The aim of the IKI is also to make use of these projects to con­tribute to green, cli­mate-friend­ly recon­struc­tion.

IKI projects in the country (last updated: August 2025):

  • bilat­er­al: 14 ongo­ing, 12 com­plet­ed
  • region­al: 3 ongo­ing, 7 com­plet­ed
  • glob­al: 8 ongo­ing, 2 com­plet­ed

IKI part­ner min­istries in Ukraine:

  • Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment and Agri­cul­ture of Ukraine
  • Min­istry of Ener­gy
  • Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ties, Ter­ri­to­ries and Infra­struc­ture Devel­op­ment

Priority Areas of Work in Ukraine

Ukraine and Ger­many have a close, long-stand­ing coop­er­a­tion in the cli­mate and bio­di­ver­si­ty sec­tor. Since 2008, the IKI has sup­port­ed Ukraine in its cli­mate action efforts, in the adap­ta­tion to the impacts of cli­mate change, and in the con­ser­va­tion and restora­tion of nat­ur­al car­bon sinks and the con­ser­va­tion of bio­di­ver­si­ty.

The focus of the com­mit­ment of the IKI in Ukraine is on an ambi­tious cli­mate pol­i­cy and the mit­i­ga­tion of green­house gas emis­sions. In par­tic­u­lar, the ongo­ing IKI projects sup­port the fur­ther devel­op­ment of the Ukrain­ian NDC (nation­al­ly deter­mined con­tri­bu­tion) and the cor­re­spond­ing sec­tor strate­gies includ­ing their imple­men­ta­tion. The reduc­tion of ener­gy inten­si­ty and the asso­ci­at­ed actions towards ener­gy effi­cien­cy play a cru­cial role in this respect.

Due to the effects of the Russ­ian war of aggres­sion against Ukraine, the IKI port­fo­lio will increas­ing­ly focus on the require­ments of Ukraine for cli­mate-friend­ly and resilient recon­struc­tion and in par­tic­u­lar on decen­tralised, renew­able ener­gies to restore the ener­gy and heat sup­ply. At the same time, the cli­mate-rel­e­vant and bio­di­ver­si­ty-friend­ly trans­for­ma­tion will be pro­mot­ed and accel­er­at­ed. There­fore, select­ed ongo­ing projects and ini­tia­tives receive addi­tion­al com­mis­sions. In 2024, four projects with a vol­ume of 34,5 mil­lion euros were approved.

IKI Implementing Organisations

Cur­rent­ly, the run­ning IKI projects in Ukraine are imple­ment­ed by dif­fer­ent organ­i­sa­tions and insti­tu­tions. The fol­low­ing insi­tu­tions are cur­rent­ly imple­ment­ing the projects, fund­ed by the IKI on behalf of the Ger­man Gov­ern­ment, in Ukraine: