Kyiv, September 3, 2019.

The Crimean Tatar Resource Center calls on Ukraine to join the Declaration of Interest in Cooperation with Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change. The signing of the declaration was initiated by the Indigenous Peoples’ Group on Sustainable Development ahead of the Climate Change Summit, scheduled for September 23. “The declaration clearly defines the role of indigenous peoples in combating climate change. Its main message is that Indigenous Peoples commit to promoting the conservation and restoration of ecosystems on their lands and to managing them in accordance with the principles of sustainable development… We have already signed on to it and urge Ukraine to do the same—this is an important step for Ukraine to position itself as a country that cares about the future of the world,” said Eskender Bariev, chairman of the board of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center and a member of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, at a press briefing at the Ukraine Crisis Media Center.

According to him, this step will help draw the international community’s attention to the deteriorating environmental situation in occupied Crimea.

“The Russian Federation regularly takes actions that disrupt Crimea’s ecosystem. These include large-scale construction projects carried out without the consent of the indigenous people, various military exercises, and other actions that violate international law. Therefore, we call on Ukraine to join the declaration and to use all diplomatic and legal mechanisms to help protect Crimea,” said Eskender Bariev.

“Article 29 of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the UN in 2007 and to which Ukraine is a signatory, clearly guarantees the rights of indigenous peoples to participate in environmental protection, and for states and the international community to ensure such protection,” noted Boris Babin, a legal advisor at Barristers Law Firm and a professor at the Institute of Legislation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The rights of indigenous peoples to preserve biodiversity are also enshrined in the Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity. “Unfortunately, Ukraine is not yet a party to this protocol. The new composition of the Verkhovna Rada should pay attention to the need for such accession,” added Boris Babin.

The global consequences of global warming are currently objectively beneficial to only a few global players, but Russia is among them. This is due to the economic revival of the North, the removal of its own territories from areas unsuitable for agriculture, and the strengthening of the Arctic’s role in shipping and military affairs. And also—due to the gradual collapse of Western economies tied to coastal megacities that are set to be flooded by 2050. Of course, this year’s unprecedented fires in Siberia and the Amazon may be an extremely unfortunate coincidence. But it is precisely these fires that are not only directly destroying the traditional habitats of the indigenous peoples of Eurasia and South America, but also threatening the current ecosystems of the Arctic (melting glaciers and sea ice) and Oceania (flooding of hundreds of coral islands).

All of this naturally affects the interests of hundreds of indigenous peoples around the world, who have submitted a corresponding appeal to this year’s UN Climate Summit. It is difficult to predict Ukraine’s position at this summit, primarily because our economy and its key beneficiaries are tied to the somewhat chaotic burning of coal and gas in the energy, metallurgy, and chemical sectors. At the same time, recently proposed plans to increase the share of nuclear power in the domestic energy sector offer at least some cautious optimism.

However, our immature society—which, for many years, has been protesting, for example, against the completion of the South Bug and Dniester power plants (burning thousands of additional metric tons of anthracite every winter is apparently much more environmentally friendly), is capable—right here and now, without Messrs. A. or F.—of stalling any well-founded initiatives. And global warming actually affects Crimea not only because of the additional risks of dehydration and desertification, as well as the flooding of the lowlands in the north of the peninsula by the Sea of Azov (this will stretch over many decades and will obviously be addressed by us only after de-occupation), but also because of the already existing additional, massive, and unauthorized carbon dioxide emissions from the two thermal power plants built by the occupiers on the peninsula. These plants are voraciously burning Ukraine’s hydrocarbon resources, stolen from our Black Sea shelf.

Well, let’s see what Ukraine, as a world power, has to say on September 23 at the summit—we won’t have to wait much longer.