Market for greenhouse gas emission quotas may be launched before 2025 – deputy minister

Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources for European Integration Iryna Stavchuk hopes the market for greenhouse gas emission quotas may be launched before 2025.

She made the comment during an online conference, as reported by an UNIAN correspondent on November 10.

"The European Union supports the deadlines of the system launch in 2025-2027. Nothing holds us from doing this sooner if it's done earlier, but the system is very complex and its launch requires a significant volumes of legislation and regulations… Given the great number of decisions that need to be made, the market may fail to be launched before 2025, but with pro-active political will and support, we can try to speed it up," she said.

Stavchuk says the ministry is actively working toward launching such market.

Read alsoEcologist Ievgen Khlobystov: In Crimea, water is consumed in a barbaric way. It's like pouring champagne over the garden"The first step is to implement a verification monitoring system. The [relevant] law has been adopted, and the ministry is focused on making the system function next year. All required resolutions have been approved, we are drafting the orders and doing everything possible to make the system work. To properly plan the trading system, we need to determine the actual greenhouse gas emission levels in each sector. Enterprises file their reports, but there is a lack of unified methods," she added.

Background

On September 23, the Cabinet of Ministers introduced a number of resolutions to improve mechanisms and tools for effective monitoring and assessment of environmental impact, which bring Ukraine closer to the European Union. In particular, a number of regulations to launch the national market for greenhouse gas emissions trading from 2021 have been approved.

In August, experts from the European Business Association's Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Development Committee urged the government not to delay the launch of greenhouse gas emission trading, as this would increase the risks of imposing an additional carbon tax on Ukrainian goods.