Intensifying German-Ukrainian Climate Cooperation in Times of War in Ukraine

The sec­ond IKI inter­face work­shop for Ukraine was held on 27 Feb­ru­ary in Berlin.

Almost exact­ly one year ago, Rus­sia invad­ed Ukraine and the coun­try has been at war ever since. What are the impli­ca­tions for the projects run by the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI)? And how can work already start on a green recon­struc­tion, giv­en this sit­u­a­tion?

These and oth­er ques­tions were dis­cussed in the sec­ond IKI inter­face work­shop for Ukraine. The work­shop, held on 27 Feb­ru­ary 2023 in Berlin and as a vir­tu­al event, was titled “IKI Imple­men­ta­tion in War Times – Under­pin­ning Ukraine’s Green Recon­struc­tion with Ambi­tious Cli­mate and Bio­di­ver­si­ty Pol­i­cy and Action”, and saw Ukrain­ian IKI projects dis­cussing these issues togeth­er with polit­i­cal part­ners from Ger­many and Ukraine.

Wrap-Up Video of the Event

Also par­tic­i­pat­ing in the con­fer­ence was a del­e­ga­tion from the Ukrain­ian Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, which includ­ed Ukraine’s Deputy Min­is­ter of Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources, Mr Olek­san­dr Kras­no­lut­skyi. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of all IKI imple­ment­ing organ­i­sa­tions work­ing in Ukraine were also in atten­dance. Ger­many was rep­re­sent­ed by the Fed­er­al Envi­ron­ment Min­istry (BMUV), the Fed­er­al Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Cli­mate Action (BMWK), the Fed­er­al For­eign Office (AA) and Zukun­ft-Umwelt-Gesellschaft (ZUG) gGmbH as the IKI project man­age­ment agency. The event itself was organ­ised by the Ukraine Inter­face Project at Gesellschaft für inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH.

The Ukrain­ian del­e­ga­tion also includ­ed Olek­san­dr Kras­no­lut­skyi, Deputy Min­is­ter at the Ukrain­ian Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment.

The work­shop was opened by Dr Philipp Behrens, Head of the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive Divi­sion at the BMWK, who empha­sised the long-stand­ing close coop­er­a­tion with Ukraine in his keynote:

This year, the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive turns 15 – and from the out­set, Ukraine and Ger­many have worked togeth­er close­ly on projects sup­port­ed by this fund­ing pro­gramme. In the future, we are aim­ing to fur­ther strength­en this close coop­er­a­tion with the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment – par­tic­u­lar­ly in terms of a green and cli­mate-friend­ly recon­struc­tion. I tru­ly hope that the war in Ukraine can be stopped as soon as pos­si­ble, there­by allow­ing us to tack­le these chal­lenges togeth­er with­in a peace­ful Europe.”

In his speech, Olek­san­dr Kras­no­lut­skyi, Deputy Min­is­ter of Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources of Ukraine, high­light­ed the pri­or­i­ty giv­en to pro­tect­ing the cli­mate and bio­di­ver­si­ty in his coun­try, despite the ongo­ing war:

I would like to thank the Ger­man author­i­ties for the help pro­vid­ed to Ukraine. This has been offered on many lev­els: in terms of wel­com­ing refugees and mil­i­tary aid, and also in the field of envi­ron­ment and cli­mate pro­tec­tion. Even though the sit­u­a­tion in Ukraine is very dif­fi­cult at the moment, we already have to make plans for the future. Ukraine’s recov­ery will take place under the mot­to ‘Build back bet­ter, build back green­er’. For this, we will draw on best prac­tices from Europe. With ini­tia­tives like the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive, Ger­many is a lead­ing coun­try in this field.

The IKI has sup­port­ed Ukraine since 2008 and will expand this engage­ment even fur­ther in the future. To date, the pro­gramme has sup­port­ed 20 bilat­er­al projects between Ger­many and Ukraine, with a total fund­ing vol­ume of almost EUR 100 mil­lion. This coop­er­a­tion is focus­ing on cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion. The work­shop offered par­tic­i­pants a plat­form for in-depth dis­cus­sions about IKI project activ­i­ties in wartime. Top­ics of dis­cus­sion includ­ed sound­ing out ways to use the IKI net­work to strength­en sup­port in Ukraine.

The ‘inter­face work­shops’ are a long-estab­lished dia­logue for­mat, which are organ­ised by the IKI inter­face projects. This IKI work­shop was a key agen­da item for the Ukrain­ian delegation’s offi­cial vis­it to Ger­many.

Pho­tos and Video: GIZ/Georg Mey­er