The final chords of URC 2024
Kyiv/Berlin
June 13, 2024
"The main value of victory is not measured in euros or dollars. It is friendship," said Thomas Bagger, State Secretary of the German Foreign Office, optimistically at the closing plenary. "Putin has no such currency," he added.
Friendship, optimism, professionalism, and deep motivation are the pillars on which Ukraine's environmental movement is built. We hope to include in the agenda the restoration of Ukraine based on the principles of sustainable development, cross-cutting environmental policy, compliance with environmental standards, and the principles of 'rebuilding greener than before.' This includes taking into account decarbonisation and achieving climate neutrality in the reconstruction process. This approach will improve the quality of life in a safe environment and implement the principles of European integration by adapting Ukrainian legislation and policy to the EU acquis and effectively implementing transposed European environmental legislation. Additionally, it aligns with the principles of the New European Bauhaus—sustainability, aesthetics, and community building—to achieve the goals of the European Green Deal.
Without considering the principles of sustainable development and cross-cutting environmental policy, and without implementing the basic environmental reforms outlined in the European Commission’s Report, the efforts of more than 3,500 people at the URC will be in vain. The implementation of over a hundred agreements and memoranda signed at the conference will not bring us closer to green recovery.
Nevertheless, we remain hopeful that Ukraine's politicians and honest businesses will understand the inevitability of European environmental reforms. We hope that the Platform for Action on the Green Recovery of Ukraine, created during the conference, will help implement these reforms. We aim that by the next Green Recovery Conference, this topic will truly enter the discourse of high politics, and we will see genuine integration of environmental and climate policy at all events and panels. We will hear the powerful voice of wounded and damaged nature, advocated not only by representatives of the environmental movement but also by politicians and responsible businesses.