At the 42nd session of the Executive Body of the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution in Geneva, on the initiative of Ukraine, the liquidation of the EECCA Coordination Group began.
Russia, which headed the Coordination Group of the network of climate non-governmental organizations in the region of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA), has resigned, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources reports on Facebook.
Representatives of 37 countries participate in the Convention.
The press service of the Ministry of Environment said that at the beginning of the session, the delegation of Ukraine informed the participants about the damage caused to the environment as a result of Russian military aggression and called on the participants of the Convention to support the post-war reconstruction and restoration of Ukraine.
The message emphasized that Ukraine was supported in their speeches by the representatives of the USA, the UK, Norway, Georgia, the EU and Canada. They called on the aggressor state to stop the criminal actions that the Russians inflict on the environment and population of Ukraine every day, and assured Ukraine of their loyalty.
The delegation of Ukraine also announced that the country is leaving the EECCA Coordination Group together with Georgia and Moldova.
"We believe that the representative of the aggressor state and its accomplices, who violated the Charter and the basic principles of the existence of the UN institution, cannot hold any leadership positions at any level in the bodies and mechanisms of the UN system and coordinate any activity. At the same time, we ask the Bureau of the Executive Body to review the powers of the EECCA Coordination Group and to consider the need for its existence in general," the Ukrainian delegation said in a statement.
This proposal was supported by the EU, and Switzerland proposed to create a new coordination group, which will be more effective for the implementation of the protocols of the Convention. The USA, Canada and the UK supported such initiatives.
"The result of the above-mentioned decisions was that Russia, which headed the EECCA Coordination Group, resigned," the message emphasized.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that the participants of the international conference of the Ramsar Convention (COP14), for the first time in its 50 years of existence, voted for restrictions on Russia's rights as a Contracting Party.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, the Ukrainian delegation at the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Berne Convention on the Protection of Wild Flora and Fauna and Natural Habitats in Europe achieved restriction of the rights of Belarus as a contracting party to the Convention.
