UKRGASBANK became the first Ukrainian partner of the carbon pricing leadership coalition

UKRGASBANK became the first partner from Ukraine to join the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, a community of climate leaders brought together with the goal of putting in place effective carbon pricing policies that maintain competitiveness, create jobs, encourage innovation, and deliver meaningful emissions reductions.

The Ukrainian economy is one of the most energy-intensive in the world and requires immediate modernization. The system of pricing for GHG emissions, which aims to stimulate green investments, is the tool that may drive renewable energy and energy efficiency development in Ukraine.

In 2016, UKRGASBANK in cooperation with IFC started to develop green banking in Ukraine. Today, Ukrgasbank is the first and the only bank in the region with focus on green finance. Since the inception of the project UKRGASBANK financed more than 330 projects for corporate clients and SMEs for the amount in excess of EUR 400 million. “These projects save almost 900 thousand tons of CO2 emission a year. We believe that financing of low-emission projects will drive sensible actions on climate change” — said Kyrylo Shevchenko, UKRGASBANK CEO.

As the Coalition partner, UKRGASBANK will get access to the platform for knowledge sharing, targeted technical analysis and public-private dialogues that guide successful carbon pricing policy adoption and accelerate implementation.

“Our experience in financing green projects and cooperation with regulatory authorities may contribute to the implementation of optimal carbon pricing mechanisms in Ukraine that will stimulate the development of green technologies and innovative projects on the market, introducing new, low-carbon factors of economic growth in Ukraine. We are already registering reduction in GHG emissions in the projects financed by UKRGASBANK. The Bank makes assessment of environmental and social risks of the projects and actively cooperates with regulatory authorities on promoting financing of emission reduction initiatives. We are also working on a strategy for assessing and reducing emissions from our own activities” — said Kyrylo Shevchenko.

For reference: The Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition is a unique initiative that brings together the public and private sectors to introduce effective carbon pricing strategies that support competitiveness, create jobs, encourage innovation and deliver significant emission reductions.

The coalition was formed at the United Nations Climate Summit in 2014, where 74 countries and more than 1,000 companies expressed support for carbon pricing. The official launch of the Coalition took place at COP21 in Paris in December 2015.

25.05.2018