While attacks have destroyed much of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, it also offered a crash course on the value of distributed renewable power. Read more at straitstimes.com.
KYIV – Valeriya Izhyk was excited when she arrived at the Ukrainian ski resort of Bukovel, in the Carpathian Mountains, last Christmas Eve. The 28-year-old would be reunited with her parents for the first time since February 2022, when she had fled her home in Kyiv for Brussels in the wake of Russia’s invasion.
“It’s not enough to just throw the cheapest energy solution to Ukraine and expect this to be considered as, ‘Job done,’” she said. “You have to put your money where your mouth is, even in situations like Ukraine.” Leaders also see clean power as a way to permanently end the country’s dependence on Russian gas. For decades, Moscow used its control over gas that flows through pipelines across Ukraine and into Europe as a tool to influence officials in Kyiv.
Even as the war grinds on and its outcome remains uncertain, reconstruction funds have started to flow. Clean energy and energy-efficient buildings are part of the Ukrainian government’s plans, and lenders such as the European Investment Bank and the European Multilateral Development Bank have added climate conditions to their reconstruction loans.
Climate change is unlikely to be a pressing concern among the thousands of local leaders who will ultimately spend the rebuilding money. Aid flowing to Ukraine is subject to strict supervisory and reporting rules, but corruption has historically been a problem in the country: Transparency International in 2022 gave the nation a score of 33 on its 100-point Corruption Perceptions Index .
Even before Russia’s invasion, the country had its environmental and climate work cut out for it. In 2021, almost a third of Ukraine’s energy consumption came from coal, the most polluting of fossil fuels. The country’s government is now aiming for a mix of 50 per cent renewables and 50 per cent nuclear on its grid by 2030. But about 90 per cent of the country’s wind farms, the main source of clean electricity before the war, have been destroyed or stand in occupied territories.
“We had only two sunny days this winter, but it was enough – during blackouts we charged batteries and kept some lamps on for our son, who is really afraid of darkness,” she said. Manmade climate change and Russia’s war against Ukraine have the same roots, Dr Krakovska told fellow scientists on a video call as bombs started to fall over Kyiv. The struggle to control fossil fuel resources that produce greenhouse gases when burned defines the balance of power among states.
“We implement the policy of the EU and that policy is climate – even in recovery projects,” said Violaine Silvestro von Kameke, a senior loan officer at the EIB overseeing Ukrainian programmes. Through the same network of climate-minded Ukrainians and allies that Ms Izhyk and Dr Krakovska belong to, Ro3kvit reached the top of the EU hierarchy: the European Commission, the bloc’s regulatory arm. Through a €7 million initiative called Phoenix – part of the New European Bauhaus, the commission’s agenda for a greener 21st-century Europe – Ro3kvit will help train Ukrainian mayors and local officials in sustainable reconstruction techniques.
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