On October 4, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted Law No. 2009a-d “On Environmental Impact Assessment”. This means that the country sets European standards for assessing the impact of industrial facilities on the environment.
Now a unified (publicly accessible) register of enterprises with an assessment of their impact on the environment will appear in Ukraine. Only certain types of activities will fall under the law: oil and gas refineries, thermal power plants, production and enrichment of nuclear fuel, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, construction, waste management, agriculture, mining and energy industries , etc. Small businesses should not be affected, for which the law specifies the minimum criteria that enterprises must meet.
Law No. 2009a-d is a necessity for Ukraine in view of its accession to European directives in the field of environmental protection. It is reported that its adoption in the country was hindered: “Big business, financial and industrial groups and business lobbies in parliament did not want and do not want to accept this law to the last…” - said Ostap Yednak, Secretary of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Environmental Policy and Elimination of Consequences accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. However, environmental impact assessment is still destined to happen, and this is good news, especially against the backdrop of recent WHO statistics , where Ukraine topped the ranking of countries in terms of relative mortality from air pollution.
See also anekdotig:
- Newsletter: " WHO: China No. 1 in absolute mortality from air pollution, Ukraine No. 1 in relative " (September 27, 2016)
- News: " 31 countries (including Belarus and Ukraine) have joined the Paris climate agreement (COP21) " (September 23, 2016)
- News: " Ukraine will report on pollutants under the PRTR Protocol of the Aarhus Convention " (May 5, 2016)
- News: " Ukraine implements national waste management program " (March 17, 2015)