Strengthening Ukraine’s expert capacity for participation in international climate negotiations

On 26–27 May, a two-day train­ing on prepa­ra­tion for inter­na­tion­al cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions under the Unit­ed Nations Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UNFCCC) took place in Kyiv. The event brought togeth­er Ukrain­ian experts and gov­ern­ment offi­cials work­ing in the field of cli­mate pol­i­cy with the aim of deep­en­ing their under­stand­ing of key inter­na­tion­al nego­ti­a­tion process­es and strength­en­ing Ukraine’s capac­i­ty to effec­tive­ly rep­re­sent its inter­ests at the glob­al lev­el.

Inter­na­tion­al cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions play a cru­cial role in shap­ing the glob­al cli­mate archi­tec­ture. They define the rules for imple­ment­ing the Paris Agree­ment, approach­es to emis­sion reduc­tions, cli­mate finance mech­a­nisms, adap­ta­tion sup­port, and instru­ments for inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion. For coun­tries, par­tic­i­pa­tion in these nego­ti­a­tions is essen­tial as it allows them to influ­ence the devel­op­ment of inter­na­tion­al rules, attract finan­cial resources for cli­mate and envi­ron­men­tal reforms, strength­en nation­al posi­tions, and ensure that their inter­ests are reflect­ed in glob­al deci­sions. 

For Ukraine, this is also an impor­tant instru­ment for sup­port­ing the Euro­pean inte­gra­tion process and post-war green recov­ery, as well as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to inte­grate cli­mate pri­or­i­ties into recon­struc­tion and long-term devel­op­ment process­es.

Dur­ing the train­ing, par­tic­i­pants cov­ered key top­ics of cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions, includ­ing: 

— cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion,  

— response mea­sures and the Glob­al Stock­take under the Paris Agree­ment,  

— adap­ta­tion, loss and dam­age asso­ci­at­ed with the impacts of cli­mate change,  

— cli­mate finance,  

— mech­a­nisms under Arti­cle 6 of the Paris Agree­ment.  

Par­tic­u­lar atten­tion was giv­en to the inter­link­ages between dif­fer­ent the­mat­ic areas of the nego­ti­a­tion process and to prac­ti­cal aspects of devel­op­ing nego­ti­a­tion posi­tions with­in inter­na­tion­al cli­mate forums.

Such train­ings con­tribute to strength­en­ing Ukraine’s expert capac­i­ty and enhance its abil­i­ty to active­ly and sub­stan­tive­ly par­tic­i­pate in inter­na­tion­al cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions that shape the future rules of glob­al cli­mate pol­i­cy. 

The work­shop was orga­nized by the projects “IKI Inter­face: Sup­port­ing Ukraine towards Ambi­tious and Integrat­ed Cli­mate Pol­i­cy (GreenUkraine)” and “Sup­port­ing Ukraine in the imple­men­ta­tion of the Paris Agree­ment and adap­ta­tion to the impact of cli­mate change in the Black Sea region (PAABS),” 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).