Ukraine ‘At Risk of Losing Kyoto Quotas’
Ukraine can lose its Kyoto Protocol quotas due to the negligence of officials, Liga.net reports.
According to Svitlana Hrynchuk, Director of Department of Climate Change and Preservation of the Ozone Layer, private company Softline disabled the registry of greenhouse gas emissions since August 8, 2015.
"Since 2007, the company provided technical administration of the registry. As it is not functional now, Ukraine can be accused of violation of the terms of Kyoto Protocol," Liga.Net goes on.
Oleksii Khabatiuk, Chair of Board of Green Investment Fund of Ukraine, informed that on June 21 that UN experts in Bonn had documented that Ukraine de facto breached the terms of the Kyoto Protocol. It is highly likely that the final decision on this breach will be made at the next meeting in Bonn in September.
Softline asserted that the Ecology Ministry had not paid for the technical administration since early 2015 and had disregarded all its requests and notifications – including a warning about disabling the register.
"The service agreement for 2015 was not concluded for some unknown reasons," Softline explained to the Ministry.
Softline is going to re-launch the register on its own and wait for the agreement and payment, the company stressed.
Hrynchuk claims that Softline has to support the government in complying with the requirements of Kyoto Protocol. She warns that in losing Kyoto quotas, Ukraine will suffer reputation loss. Moreover, current agreements on selling quota units may be revised. An example of such an agreement is a deal with Japan – Ukraine sells the quotas on carbon dioxide emission while Japan provides patrol police Toyota Prius vehicles.
"We still have an opportunity to show the functional registry so that Ukraine is not excluded from this framework," Hrynchuk believes. According to her, the UN Committee may give Ukraine more time and postpone final decision. Talks with the UN representatives are ongoing.
Source: Ekonomichna Pravda
