Representatives of Ukrainian business faced difficulties in implementing a system for monitoring, reporting and verifying greenhouse gas emissions, the European Business Association (EBA) said.
In particular, there is a shortage of verifiers to validate the emissions data of about 400 companies for a month and a half, according to its statement on Friday.
The EBA said that under the law on greenhouse gas emissions, companies must submit the first verified reports along with approved monitoring plans for the recent year by March 31, 2022. To date, according to ISO 14065:2015 national standard, only three verifier companies have been accredited, and two of them have appeared in the last two weeks, association said.
The EBA believes that in the current situation it will be necessary to extend the deadlines for submitting reports or provide conditions for the temporary submission of unverified reports.
According to the association, these negative aspects may lead to the application of sanctions against companies, in particular, by the State Environmental Inspectorate. Therefore, the EBA considers it expedient “to exclude the relevant issues on the subject of inspections of environmental inspectors.”
“Only verified data on CO2 emissions will allow companies to prove the effectiveness of the measures taken to decarbonize production and maintain a competitive position in the European market… That is why the European Business Association turned to the Prime Minister with a request to intervene and facilitate the involvement of all stakeholders in the dialogue: business, the Ministry of Ecology, State Environmental Inspectorate,” coordinator of the Committee for Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Development of the European Business Association Olha Boiko said.
In addition, businesses need to clarify the mechanism for calculating and paying the eco-tax for carbon emissions in order to create a full-fledged emissions trading system in Ukraine, the association said.
“If earlier there was no clear unified methodology for calculating emissions, now after the introduction of unified approaches, the data of some companies may change significantly,” the EBA said.
