A balanced climate policy, accession to European decarbonization funds, and the application of the declarative CBAM principle to Ukraine will help protect our country from large economic losses after the full application of the cross-border carbon adjustment mechanism.
This was stated by Stanislav Zinchenko, Chairman of the Committee on Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Development of the European Business Association (EBA), in an exclusive interview with EcoPolitics.
On January 1, 2026, the payment of carbon duties will begin under a fundamentally new and experimental mechanism of the European Union called CBAM. Importers will be required to purchase so-called CBAM certificates for their products.
First of all, the expert noted that Europe has realized its own unpreparedness for new carbon prices and new challenges. He said that over the past two years, the EU has begun to actively finance decarbonization projects through direct grants and subsidies.
“Those companies that will manage to decarbonize by 2030 will not pay this carbon tax, or it will be very insignificant for them,” says Stanislav Zinchenko.
He named 3 components of the Ukrainian recipe for CBAM, which, in his opinion, will help to avoid the devastating impact of this carbon tax on the Ukrainian economy:
- Considered and adequate state climate policy , which will be accepted by European partners.
"And this does not mean ambitious and naive. There should be a road map with concrete resources, concrete institutional changes. Only slogans and declared goals will not work," the expert is confident.
- Connecting Ukraine to European decarbonization funds .
The chairman of the EBA committee emphasized that the connection to these funds should not be through the mediation of the state, but through the interaction of European institutions and private business in Ukraine. "Unfortunately, our system of state funds is discredited due to corruption and inefficiency," he said.
- Application to Ukraine of clause 30.7 of the CBAM regulation , which provides for the possibility of excluding a country from the CBAM in the event of force majeure.
Stanislav Zinchenko said that such circumstances include the war currently underway in Ukraine. He emphasized that Ukrainian politicians should raise the issue of applying to domestic manufacturers the declarative principle of CBAM, under which enterprises will report on their own emissions, but will not pay the cost of certificates.
"If this norm is not applied to Ukraine, then the country that has suffered the most from the war in recent years will also be the most affected by the action of this duty," he summarized.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that at the end of October The European Commission made public CBAM implementation project with requirements for declarants. EcoPolitics also wrote about first problems, which arose during the transitional stage of CBAM, and the necessary solutions for them. We also gave the opinion of the president of the association of enterprises "Ukrmetalurgprom" Oleksandr Kalenkov that Ukraine should negotiate now with the EU on the postponement of CBAM.
