EU4ClimateResilience | Decarbonisation and Climate Resilience in the European Union’s Eastern Partnership Countries

The EU4ClimateResilience project is a strate­gic region­al ini­tia­tive designed to advance the green tran­si­tion, accel­er­ate decar­bon­i­sa­tion, and strength­en cli­mate resilience across the five coun­tries of the EU’s East­ern Part­ner­ship (EaP): Arme­nia, Azer­bai­jan, Geor­gia, the Repub­lic of Moldo­va, and Ukraine. 

These coun­tries are par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to the impacts of cli­mate change. Ris­ing fre­quen­cies of extreme weath­er events, pro­longed heat­waves, for­est fires, droughts, heavy rain­fall, and floods are expect­ed to inten­si­fy dis­as­ter risks, trig­ger con­sid­er­able eco­nom­ic loss­es, and pose severe pub­lic health chal­lenges. At the same time, all five coun­tries are com­mit­ted to reduc­ing their cli­mate foot­print. They are pur­su­ing reg­u­la­to­ry reforms to align with EU poli­cies while build­ing the insti­tu­tion­al and tech­ni­cal capac­i­ties need­ed to effec­tive­ly imple­ment the Paris Agree­ment. 

In Ukraine, the project provides expertise, capacity development, and coordination in several key areas: 

Policy Enhancement and Alignment (implemented by GIZ) 

— Sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment of robust cli­mate poli­cies and legal frame­works aligned with the Paris Agree­ment and the EU cli­mate acquis. 

— Assist­ing with the update of the Nation­al­ly Deter­mined Con­tri­bu­tion (NDC) and strength­en­ing insti­tu­tion­al capac­i­ties for its effec­tive imple­men­ta­tion and reg­u­lar updates. 

— Sup­port­ing the design and imple­men­ta­tion of the nation­al Mon­i­tor­ing, Report­ing, and Ver­i­fi­ca­tion (MRV) sys­tem. 

— Main­stream­ing cli­mate change con­sid­er­a­tions into sec­toral and region­al poli­cies. 

— Pro­mot­ing region­al coop­er­a­tion, cross-bor­der exchange, joint ini­tia­tives, and knowl­edge-shar­ing among EaP coun­tries to strength­en col­lec­tive cli­mate resilience across the region. 

— Pro­vid­ing tar­get­ed assis­tance for Ukraine’s green post-war recon­struc­tion, in line with both the green and dig­i­tal agen­das. 

Climate Adaptation (Implemented by GIZ) 

— Sup­port­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of local demon­stra­tion projects in urban munic­i­pal­i­ties that are sig­na­to­ries of the Covenant of May­ors East. These projects show­case the tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits of cli­mate adap­ta­tion mea­sures and strength­en the pre­pared­ness and resilience of cities and munic­i­pal­i­ties against both short- and long-term cli­mate risks. 

— Assist­ing in the devel­op­ment, revi­sion, and imple­men­ta­tion of nation­al and region­al adap­ta­tion plans, as well as dis­as­ter risk reduc­tion strate­gies. 

Green Financing (Implemented by OECD) 

To mobilise addi­tion­al sus­tain­able invest­ments, the project sup­ports the cre­ation of cred­i­ble reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works for green financ­ing and pro­motes the intro­duc­tion of inno­v­a­tive finan­cial instru­ments, such as green bonds. 

EU4ClimateResilience is imple­ment­ed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH and the Organ­i­sa­tion for Eco­nom­ic Co-oper­a­tion and Devel­op­ment (OECD). The project is co-financed by the Euro­pean Union and the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Action, Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Nuclear Safe­ty (BMUKN) through the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI).The BMUKN-fund­ed project Pro­mot­ing Green Deal Readi­ness in the East­ern Part­ner­ship Coun­tries (PROGRESS) com­ple­ments EU4ClimateResilience, as it like­wise sup­ports the five EaP coun­tries in advanc­ing their align­ment with the EU Green Deal. The close com­ple­men­tar­i­ty of the two projects, both joint­ly imple­ment­ed by GIZ and OECD, exem­pli­fies the Team Europe approach.