Ukraine at COP30: сlimate policy, biodiversity conservation, and inclusivity and equality in the climate sector

Dur­ing the UN Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence COP30 in Belém, Brazil, Ukraine show­cased five key the­mat­ic areas: forests and bio­di­ver­si­ty, cli­mate pol­i­cy, envi­ron­men­tal dam­age caused by the war, food secu­ri­ty, and green recov­ery.

The IKI Inter­face Ukraine project has con­tributed to high­light­ing Ukraine’s at 4 side-events key cli­mate pri­or­i­ties: the devel­op­ment of the third cycle of Nation­al­ly Deter­mined Con­tri­bu­tions (NDC 3.0) and the Long-Term Low-Emis­sion Devel­op­ment Strat­e­gy (LT-LEDS), pro­mot­ing equal­i­ty and inclu­siv­i­ty in the cli­mate sec­tor, and fos­ter­ing the syn­er­gy of cli­mate and nature pro­tec­tion actions to build a resilient and eco­nom­i­cal­ly devel­oped coun­try. These areas of cli­mate pol­i­cy are also among the main focus areas of the IKI Inter­face Ukraine project, imple­ment­ed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Nature Con­ser­va­tion, Nuclear Safe­ty, and Con­sumer Pro­tec­tion (BMUKN) under the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI).

NDC 3.0: climate commitments in a country fighting for survival

On Octo­ber 29, Ukraine adopt­ed its Sec­ond Nation­al­ly Deter­mined Con­tri­bu­tion (NDC 2.0), set­ting a tar­get to reduce green­house gas emis­sions by more than 65% from 1990 lev­els by 2035.

The sec­ond NDC, which Ukraine pre­pared in 2025 as part of the third NDC cycle (NDC 3.0), became the country’s first cli­mate com­mit­ment under the Paris Agree­ment to be devel­oped in the con­text of the full-scale war. It incor­po­rates war-relat­ed infra­struc­ture dam­age, eco­nom­ic uncer­tain­ty, and the country’s green recov­ery needs, while main­tain­ing a path­way to cli­mate neu­tral­i­ty by 2050. 

At the Ukrain­ian Pavil­ion dur­ing COP30, a high-lev­el dis­cus­sion titled “NDC 3.0 in Prac­tice: Turn­ing Com­mit­ments into Cli­mate Action” was held, organ­ised by the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment and Agri­cul­ture of Ukraine, the IKI Inter­face Ukraine Project, and the Stock­holm Envi­ron­ment Insti­tute. The event brought togeth­er gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives, lead­ing research cen­ters, and inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions involved in shap­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of cli­mate com­mit­ments.

The ses­sion opened with Anni­ka Markovic from the Stock­holm Envi­ron­ment Insti­tute (SEI), who empha­sised the impor­tance of inte­grat­ing find­ings from the Glob­al Stock­take and estab­lish­ing trans­par­ent, investor-sup­port­ed path­ways for emis­sion reduc­tions.

Ukrain­ian experts high­light­ed that, for the first time, the coun­try is inte­grat­ing three crit­i­cal dimen­sions in cli­mate plan­ning: war-relat­ed loss­es, recon­struc­tion chal­lenges, and EU inte­gra­tion require­ments. In design­ing the new NDC, Ukraine is lay­ing the ground­work for green recov­ery, empha­sis­ing ener­gy effi­cien­cy, renew­able ener­gy devel­op­ment, mod­ernised indus­try, and resilient infra­struc­ture.

Par­tic­i­pants stressed that NDC 3.0 should be a prac­ti­cal, trans­for­ma­tive tool rather than a pure­ly declar­a­tive doc­u­ment, fea­tur­ing clear sec­toral tar­gets and mech­a­nisms for pub­lic engage­ment. Inter­na­tion­al part­ners recog­nised Ukraine’s stead­fast cli­mate ambi­tions despite the war and con­firmed their readi­ness to deep­en col­lab­o­ra­tion in mod­el­ling, pol­i­cy devel­op­ment, and financ­ing solu­tions.

Cli­mate-Bio­di­ver­si­ty Syn­er­gy: Ukraine’s sec­ond key focus at COP30

COP30, held in the heart of the Ama­zon, was unique­ly focused on the inter­ac­tion between cli­mate and bio­di­ver­si­ty under the Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty (CBD) and the UN Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UNFCCC). With­in this theme, the event “Syn­er­gies for Resilience: Inte­grat­ed Path to Cli­mate and Bio­di­ver­si­ty Goals in Ukraine and Beyond”, organ­ised by IKI Inter­face Ukraine and Oxford Net Zero, offered a key con­tri­bu­tion from Ukraine.

The event brought togeth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment, inter­na­tion­al experts, and lead­ing researchers spe­cial­is­ing in cli­mate change and bio­di­ver­si­ty. The expert dis­cus­sion high­light­ed how the war exac­er­bates both the cli­mate cri­sis and bio­di­ver­si­ty loss. Threats include poten­tial­ly mine-con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed land cov­er­ing 139,000 km² and eco­nom­ic down­turns under­min­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of cli­mate action. 

Ukraine’s expe­ri­ence shows that address­ing these chal­lenges simul­ta­ne­ous­ly gen­er­ates a pow­er­ful resilience mul­ti­pli­er. Restor­ing dam­aged ecosys­tems, pro­tect­ing nat­ur­al wet­lands, advanc­ing cli­mate-resilient agri­cul­ture, dem­i­ning and reha­bil­i­tat­ing forests — all these actions serve both to pre­vent and reduce the impacts of cli­mate change and to safe­guard nature.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of IKI Inter­face Ukraine stressed that, for the first time, Ukraine is build­ing an inte­grat­ed frame­work com­bin­ing the Nation­al Ener­gy and Cli­mate Plan, the updat­ed NDC, and the draft Nation­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Strat­e­gy and Action Plan (NBSAP). This approach enables Ukraine to advance both the Paris Agree­ment and the goals of the Glob­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Frame­work (GBF), posi­tion­ing the coun­try as a leader and offer­ing a mod­el for nations nav­i­gat­ing the dual chal­lenges of armed con­flict and recon­struc­tion.

NDC2 and LT-LEDS: Coordinating Approaches for a Sustainable Transformation

At the Ukrain­ian Pavil­ion dur­ing COP30, a ded­i­cat­ed dis­cus­sion focused on the align­ment of two key strate­gic cli­mate doc­u­ments in Ukraine — the Sec­ond Nation­al­ly Deter­mined Con­tri­bu­tion (NDC2) and the updat­ed Long-Term Low-Emis­sion Devel­op­ment Strat­e­gy (LT-LEDS). This top­ic was explored in the side event “From Vision to Action: Align­ing Ukraine’s NDC and LT-LEDS to Dri­ve a Cli­mate-Resilient, Low-Emis­sion Trans­for­ma­tion”, organ­ised by the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment and Agri­cul­ture of Ukraine togeth­er with the UNDP in Ukraine and the IKI Inter­face Ukraine project.

The event brought togeth­er Pavlo Karthashov, Deputy Min­is­ter of Econ­o­my of Ukraine; Oleg Bon­darenko, Head of the Verk­hov­na Rada Com­mit­tee on Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy and Nature Man­age­ment; Nuri Ozba­gatli, Cli­mate Change Spe­cial­ist for Europe and Cen­tral Asia at UNDP; and Ukrain­ian experts from the Insti­tute for Eco­nom­ics and Fore­cast­ing of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of Ukraine: Roman Podolets, Olek­san­dr Diachuk, and Haly­na Try­pol­s­ka.

Par­tic­i­pants dis­cussed approach­es to devel­op­ing effec­tive cli­mate pol­i­cy, the leg­isla­tive frame­work for imple­men­ta­tion, and the mod­el­ling results under­pin­ning NDC2, the Bien­ni­al Trans­paren­cy Report (BTR), and LT-LEDS. They also high­light­ed mech­a­nisms for ensur­ing con­sis­ten­cy between doc­u­ments — from uni­fied method­olo­gies to whole-of-soci­ety engage­ment.

Spe­cial atten­tion was giv­en to the chal­lenges of plan­ning under wartime con­di­tions and the role of cli­mate adap­ta­tion in dri­ving Ukraine’s resilient recov­ery and align­ing with EU stan­dards.

Ukraine’s Green Recov­ery: the role of women, youth, and vet­er­ans

Despite the full-scale war, Ukraine is active­ly rebuild­ing and trans­form­ing its econ­o­my, accel­er­at­ing the restora­tion of ener­gy infra­struc­ture, scal­ing up renew­able ener­gy, and inte­grat­ing with the Euro­pean Green Deal. Cen­tral to this trans­for­ma­tion are the peo­ple who design, finance, build, oper­ate, and gov­ern these sys­tems.

The dis­cus­sion “Women at the Helm: Build­ing a Resilient Work­force and Dri­ving Lead­er­ship in Ukraine’s Ener­gy and Cli­mate Future”, organ­ised by the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment and Agri­cul­ture, UNDP, and IKI Inter­face Ukraine, focused on equal­i­ty and inclu­siv­i­ty in the cli­mate sec­tor. Par­tic­i­pants explored not only oppor­tu­ni­ties for women in green sec­tors of the econ­o­my, but also sup­port for vet­er­ans and youth, and the imple­men­ta­tion of gen­der-sen­si­tive and inclu­sive cli­mate poli­cies.

The speak­ers pre­sent­ed leg­isla­tive and prac­ti­cal approach­es, the results of socio-eco­nom­ic impact stud­ies of the LT-LEDS 2050 project, as well as mech­a­nisms for engag­ing all seg­ments of soci­ety in deci­sion-mak­ing and capac­i­ty devel­op­ment. 

The dis­cus­sion placed par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on mea­sures to ensure gen­der equal­i­ty and the active par­tic­i­pa­tion of youth in cli­mate pol­i­cy and recov­ery, as well as the need to account for both eco­nom­ic and non-eco­nom­ic loss­es from cli­mate change.

This approach trans­forms cli­mate pol­i­cy into a fair and effec­tive instru­ment that sup­ports Ukraine’s resilient recov­ery, long-term eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty, and social sta­bil­i­ty.

Ukraine as a model for the world

Sum­ming up the dis­cus­sions, par­tic­i­pants high­light­ed that Ukraine’s expe­ri­ence demon­strates that even under the most chal­leng­ing con­di­tions, it is pos­si­ble to build a com­pre­hen­sive cli­mate pol­i­cy that sup­ports both eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal recov­ery while fos­ter­ing human cap­i­tal devel­op­ment. The Ukrain­ian approach shows that nature-based solu­tions, dig­i­tal mon­i­tor­ing, broad stake­hold­er engage­ment, and inter­na­tion­al sup­port cre­ate real oppor­tu­ni­ties for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and eco­nom­ic recov­ery, even in the con­text of war and cli­mate risks.

Ukraine offers the world not only tech­ni­cal solu­tions but also a mod­el of hope, where revival is pos­si­ble after destruc­tion, and green recon­struc­tion becomes the key to a safe, inclu­sive, and envi­ron­men­tal­ly bal­anced future.

The events are organ­ised at the ini­tia­tive of the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment and Agri­cul­ture of Ukraine with the sup­port of the IKI Inter­face Ukraine project, Stock­holm Envi­ron­men­tal Insti­tute, the Unit­ed Nations Devel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP) in Ukraine, and Oxford Net Zero. The project “IKI Inter­face: Sup­port­ing Ukraine towards Ambi­tious and Inte­grat­ed Cli­mate Pol­i­cy (Green Ukraine)” is imple­ment­ed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf the Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Nature Con­ser­va­tion, Nuclear Safe­ty and Con­sumer Pro­tec­tion (BMUKN), with­in the frame­work of the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI).