Ukraine’s Climate Milestones on the Way to COP30

On Octo­ber 21, 2025, a hybrid event “Ukraine’s Cli­mate Mile­stones – on the Way to COP30” took place in Kyiv. It marked a key step in prepar­ing for the upcom­ing UN Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence (COP30), which will be held this year in Belém, Brazil. Around 200 par­tic­i­pants joined the dis­cus­sion — includ­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment, inter­na­tion­al part­ners, experts, civ­il soci­ety and the pri­vate sec­tor — to assess Ukraine’s cli­mate pol­i­cy progress and its next steps under the Paris Agree­ment.

Dis­cus­sions focused on the country’s Sec­ond Nation­al­ly Deter­mined Con­tri­bu­tion for the peri­od 2025–2035 (NDC2), the updat­ed Long-term Low Emis­sion Devel­op­ment Strat­e­gy until 2050 (LT-LEDS), and the first Bien­ni­al Trans­paren­cy Report (BTR). A ded­i­cat­ed ses­sion also explored Ukraine’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in COP30 and its pavil­ion in Belém.

Dur­ing the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, Fabi­en Porcher, Polit­i­cal Advi­sor on Cli­mate Diplo­ma­cy at the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, empha­sized Ukraine’s deter­mi­na­tion to align its recov­ery and cli­mate ambi­tion:

Ukraine is mak­ing impor­tant progress on its way to the EU through an ambi­tious cli­mate agen­da, and the cli­mate leg­is­la­tion adopt­ed last year clear­ly proves it. Ukraine’s recov­ery, as we’ve empha­sized on many, many occa­sions, needs to be as green as pos­si­ble. It needs to allow Ukraine to leapfrog from a very car­bon-inten­sive econ­o­my to a coun­try that can thrive in a decar­bonized Europe and in a decar­bonized world. So, this new NDC of Ukraine will, in a cer­tain way, be the green recov­ery NDC.

The adop­tion of the Cli­mate Law with legal­ly bind­ing cli­mate neu­tral­i­ty by 2050 is a major mile­stone. Ukraine is set­ting an exam­ple even in wartime. The next step is imple­ment­ing these poli­cies, includ­ing mech­a­nisms for mon­i­tor­ing and report­ing progress — and here too, Ukraine is a fron­trun­ner in the region, added Adam Czwetcz, Head of the Euro­pean Green Deal Unit at the Ener­gy Com­mu­ni­ty Sec­re­tari­at.

Oleh Bon­darenko, Head of the Verk­hov­na Rada Com­mit­tee on Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy and Nature Man­age­ment, out­lined the next cru­cial steps in cli­mate leg­is­la­tion:

“Ukraine’s aspi­ra­tion for cli­mate neu­tral­i­ty by 2050, enshrined in the Cli­mate Law, is backed by real action and by strate­gic doc­u­ments we have already devel­oped and con­tin­ue to devel­op. The main one, accord­ing to the law, is the LT-LEDS, which must be final­ized and adopt­ed by Octo­ber 30, 2025. There isn’t much time left, and the Com­mit­tee expects the gov­ern­ment to sub­mit and approve the strat­e­gy as soon as pos­si­ble.

He also expressed opti­mism that the draft law on Ukraine’s Green Recov­ery — which will include adap­ta­tion goals sup­port­ed by rel­e­vant strate­gies — will soon be sub­mit­ted to Par­lia­ment.

Ukraine’s rep­re­sen­ta­tion at COP30 will be led by the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment, and Agri­cul­ture. Pavlo Kar­tashov, Deputy Min­is­ter respon­si­ble for cli­mate pol­i­cy, thanked part­ners and stake­hold­ers for their joint efforts in sup­port­ing Ukraine’s prepa­ra­tions for COP30 and the Ukrain­ian Pavil­ion.

As for COP, our main pri­or­i­ty is adopt­ing the new NDC soon. We are hold­ing con­sul­ta­tions with the Cab­i­net of Min­is­ters on how exact­ly it will be struc­tured and what fig­ures will be includ­ed. On the one hand, the doc­u­ment must be ambi­tious, but on the oth­er — our coun­try is at war, so it must be bal­anced, con­sid­er­ing that emis­sions will tem­porar­i­ly increase dur­ing the recov­ery phase, out­lined Pavlo Kar­tashov.

Daniela Goehler, Direc­tor of the PAABS Project (GIZ) and co-orga­niz­er of the event, under­lined that Ukraine’s pres­ence in Belém will be more than sym­bol­ic – it will be a state­ment  in defense of mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism and glob­al cli­mate gov­er­nance:

Despite the full-scale war, Ukraine con­tin­ues to imple­ment the Paris Agree­ment — from prepar­ing its LT-LEDS and NDC2 to deliv­er­ing its first BTR. This sends a pow­er­ful sig­nal to the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that com­mit­ment, trans­paren­cy, and coop­er­a­tion can pre­vail even in times of cri­sis.

Svit­lana Sushko, Head of the Reform Sup­port Team at the Min­istry of Econ­o­my and coor­di­na­tor of Ukraine’s rep­re­sen­ta­tion at COP30, out­lined five key the­mat­ic blocks that will define the country’s pres­ence at the con­fer­ence: forests and bio­di­ver­si­ty, cli­mate pol­i­cy, envi­ron­men­tal dam­age from war, food secu­ri­ty, and green recov­ery. She also pre­sent­ed the pavilion’s cre­ative con­cept:

Our pavil­ion will resem­ble a kind of time cap­sule, con­vey­ing all our mes­sages through strik­ing con­trasts. That’s the idea we set­tled on — it will be full of col­or and emo­tion­al impact, and I tru­ly hope many of you will be able to come and see this piece of Ukraine in Belém.

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This year’s COP30 and Ukraine’s par­tic­i­pa­tion once again under­line the impor­tance of inter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion to achieve glob­al cli­mate goals — and Ukraine has much to show the world. Togeth­er with our Ukrain­ian part­ners, we strive to inte­grate cli­mate action into the post-war recov­ery process and joint­ly build a green and resilient future. Ukraine con­tin­ues to demon­strate strong com­mit­ment to this vision,” empha­sized Gabriel Sauer, Direc­tor of the IKI Inter­face Ukraine Project (GIZ) and also co-orga­niz­er of the event.

The event reaf­firmed Ukraine’s com­mit­ment to cli­mate action as a cen­tral pil­lar of its recov­ery and Euro­pean inte­gra­tion. It under­scored that COP30 is not only an oppor­tu­ni­ty to high­light Ukraine’s progress but also to strength­en inter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships. Ukraine’s path toward EU mem­ber­ship and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Euro­pean Green Deal will require deep trans­for­ma­tions across leg­is­la­tion and key sec­tors of the econ­o­my — a process that demands under­stand­ing, engage­ment, and shared respon­si­bil­i­ty from gov­ern­ment, busi­ness, and soci­ety alike.

Background:

Ukraine at UN Climate Conferences — From Witnessing War to Leading Green Recovery

This year’s COP30 will take place from Novem­ber 11–21 in Belém, Brazil. All mate­ri­als, event announce­ments, and key updates from the Ukrain­ian Pavil­ion will be avail­able on the offi­cial web­site.

Since the Russia’s full-scale aggres­sion, Ukraine has sig­nif­i­cant­ly trans­formed its approach to inter­na­tion­al cli­mate engage­ment. While ear­li­er the main focus was on emis­sion reduc­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of the Paris Agree­ment, since 2022 the COP plat­form has also become a venue for draw­ing glob­al atten­tion to envi­ron­men­tal crimes of war and for advo­cat­ing for a “green” recov­ery.

COP27 (2022, Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt): Ukraine’s Pavilion Debut

Ukraine opened its first-ever Nation­al Pavil­ion at a UN cli­mate con­fer­ence, high­light­ing the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion caused by Russ­ian aggres­sion — from ecosys­tem loss to pol­lu­tion and resource dam­age. The pavil­ion empha­sized the scale of war-relat­ed envi­ron­men­tal loss­es and called for estab­lish­ing a glob­al mech­a­nism for assess­ing envi­ron­men­tal dam­age from armed con­flicts. The Ukrain­ian del­e­ga­tion also intro­duced its vision for “green recov­ery,” inte­grat­ing cli­mate goals into the country’s post-war recon­struc­tion.

COP28 (2023, Dubai, UAE): Environmental Security as a Pillar of Peace

The 2023 Pavil­ion cen­tered on envi­ron­men­tal secu­ri­ty, with spe­cial atten­tion to the Kakhov­ka Dam dis­as­ter. Dur­ing COP28, Ukraine joined sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al ini­tia­tives and dec­la­ra­tions, includ­ing:

— The Glob­al Renew­ables and Ener­gy Effi­cien­cy Pledge (tripling renew­able capac­i­ty and dou­bling ener­gy effi­cien­cy by 2030);

— The Nuclear Ener­gy Dec­la­ra­tion (tripling nuclear capac­i­ty by 2050);

— The Cli­mate Club — an inter­na­tion­al plat­form sup­port­ing indus­tri­al decar­boniza­tion.

Ukraine also expand­ed inter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships by sign­ing mem­o­ran­dums on coop­er­a­tion in water resource man­age­ment, waste man­age­ment, and for­est restora­tion — includ­ing with South Korea and the Unit­ed King­dom.

COP29 (2024, Baku, Azerbaijan): Strengthening Ukraine’s National Climate Position

In Novem­ber 2024, Ukraine pre­sent­ed its third Nation­al Pavil­ion at COP29 in Baku, unit­ing nation­al and inter­na­tion­al stake­hold­ers to show­case the country’s con­tri­bu­tion to glob­al cli­mate ini­tia­tives. Key high­lights includ­ed:

— Inte­grat­ing cli­mate goals into post-war recov­ery;

— Pre­sent­ing nation­al strate­gies and leg­is­la­tion, includ­ing the Nation­al Ener­gy and Cli­mate Plan (NECP) and the Long-term Decar­boniza­tion Strat­e­gy until 2050;

— Rais­ing glob­al aware­ness of the envi­ron­men­tal impacts of war and the urgent need for a green recov­ery.

The event is orga­nized at the ini­tia­tive of the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Envi­ron­ment and Agri­cul­ture of Ukraine with the sup­port of the IKI Inter­face and PAABS projects in coop­er­a­tion with the Unit­ed Nations Devel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP) in Ukraine. The IKI Inter­face Ukraine and PAABS projects are imple­ment­ed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the Ger­man Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment under the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI).