Ostap Semerak: Gas as Resource will Soon Depreciate

Ostap Semerak, the Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine, predicts that in the nearest future natural gas as a resource will show depreciation. He expressed this opinion during the 11^th Kyiv Security Forum, organized by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk Foundation Open Ukraine.

“I believe that very rapidly, we may not even realize how rapidly this will happen, natural gas will go down in the ranking of the priorities of necessary or valuable resources. This, I think, will be a radically different response to the Russian aggression,” he stressed.

The minister cited several examples of global changes in relation to gas and other minerals.

“Starting from the next year, the World Bank will cease, just imagine – this is the official statement of the World Bank, support to any projects aimed at the development of infrastructure or the extraction of fossil energy sources. In the early 2000s, Canada calculated that it was cheaper to replace coal consumption as an energy resource than to treat people from the diseases they suffered from burning coal,” Semerak recounted.

According to him, even Saudi Arabia is building its new energy strategy based on renewable energy sources.

The minister stressed that Ukraine, too, does not stand aside of these processes.

“As of today, we have already prepared and actually approved our national strategy for low carbon development. I would like to say that, from my point of view, low carbon development is not only the preservation of our independence, not only freedom from Russian gas but also a competitive economy. The economy of a closed cycle, the economy which is green,” he noted.

According to Semerak, there are already concrete steps taken in this direction, for example, the start of the development of a solar park in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

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The annual international event Kyiv Security Forum was launched by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk Foundation Open Ukraine in 2007 as a platform for high-level discussions on the current issues in Europe and the Black Sea region. The Forum aims at increasing security cooperation between the EU and the Black Sea region, raising awareness about regional developments among key regional players, promoting the role of independent and non-governmental actors in setting the security agenda in Europe.

The event is being held with the support of NATO Information and Documentation Center in Ukraine, the German Marshall Fund, The Victor Pinchuk Foundation, The Royal Institute of International Relations, Chatham House (UK), and The Regional Representative Office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Ukraine.