Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends,

It is an honour to speak to you today on this immensely important topic at this critical moment for Ukraine, and for the whole world. I would like to thank our hosts, and Minister Hrynchuk for the opportunity to contribute to the discussion.

I am speaking this afternoon as a member of The Elders, the group of independent global leaders founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007 who work for peace, justice, human rights and a sustainable planet.

But I am not speaking as Chair of The Elders, as following our recent board meeting in London, that role was recently taken over by my fellow Elder Juan Manuel Santos, the former President of Colombia and Nobel Peace Laureate.

As many of you will recall, Juan Manuel Santos visited Ukraine in August 2022 together with Ban Ki-moon, to meet President Zelenskyy and victims of Russian atrocities in Bucha and Irpin.

In these times of profound global uncertainty, I know that Juan Manuel will lead The Elders with his unerring sense of duty, diplomacy and dedication. I will continue to play an active role in the group’s work, particularly on the existential threat posed by the climate and nature crisis.

He and I, and all the members of The Elders, stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and share your commitment to a just and lasting peace, and to holding accountable those who have committed this crime of aggression.

I would like to start by revisiting a call Juan Manuel made when he addressed the the UN Security Council last year on the need for humanity to “make peace with nature”.

He challenged those in the Council who wish to treat climate and conflict as separate issues, noting that in the real world, the consequences of climate change and conflict very clearly converge. He put it simply, but clearly: “There cannot be peace without sustainable development, and there cannot be sustainable development without peace.”

With that in mind, I commend the efforts that Ukraine has made, against the background of Russia’s horrific war of aggression, to draw global attention to the devastating impact that the conflict has had on the environment.

For the past two years, I have served alongside an esteemed group of international experts, led by former Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström and also including Greta Thunberg, on a High Level Working Group on the Environmental Consequences of the War in Ukraine.

This group was established by President Zelenskyy to document the crimes against the environment that are part of Russia’s war of aggression, but also to plan for a green recovery.  

It has been a sobering journey, including two separate visits by train to Kyiv last year. We learned of the impact of the conflict on the Ukraine’s environment, ranging from the contamination of one third of its territory with landmines and unexploded ordinance, to the pollution of soils, waterways and forests from the impacts of shelling, fires and floods.

The most egregious example was the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in June 2023, presumed to be an intentional act by occupying Russian forces, which flooded villages and farmlands across a huge area. 

But the impacts go well beyond Ukraine, as the work of Ecoaction has shown. It is staggering to note, as you reported at the two-year mark of the conflict, that the emissions from 24 months of conflict – at 175 million tCO2e - exceed the annual emissions of a highly industrialised country like The Netherlands.

Assessing and documenting the impacts on the environment is the first pillar of work of the High Level Working Group, and I commend the detailed work that has been undertaken to document these aspects of the conflict.

I must also note the impacts we see in conflicts elsewhere in the world, in particular in Israel’s assault on Gaza following the horrific Hamas terrorist attacks of 7 October 2023, and now the extension of the conflict into Lebanon.

The death toll of over 43,000 Palestinians is appalling enough, but we have also seen the complete degradation of the soil, water, land, agriculture and built environment of the Gaza Strip, home to over two million people. The damage wrought to Gaza’s environment will be felt for years and decades hence, and, outrageously, we now see this being extended to Lebanon.

We also need to acknowledge however that conflict and climate is not a one-way relationship. We are also gaining an increasing understanding of the complex, but very real, structural affect that the climate and nature crisis is having on conflict globally.

Changes in climate that affect livelihoods and living conditions, from rising sea waters to desertification and destruction of arable land, lead inevitably to changes and tensions that can directly increase the risk of violence and conflict. 

While the world adapts to the new realities brought about by the climate crisis, some of the materials on which a green energy transition depends are drawn from the most insecure environments on the planet.

Cobalt and coltan, essential for the rechargeable batteries in many of the devices we all carry, and increasingly those we drive, are sourced in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where rival groups – some supported by Rwanda - vie for control of valuable mining sites in a bloody conflict. 

One of my fellow Elders – the most recent member to join the group, in fact – is Denis Mukwege, a doctor from eastern DRC who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with victims of conflict-related sexual violence.

Observing the spike in violence linked to control of cobalt mines, he said recently that “in the DRC, the illegal exploitation of minerals for green energy in fact spills blood”. Words like that should make us all pause here at COP29.

We should ask ourselves whether we are doing enough to understand the linkages between not just climate change and conflict, but also climate adaptation and conflict.

On top of all this, patriarchal oppression and gender inequalities mean that women and girls are most disproportionately exposed to both the impacts of climate change and the worst effects of conflict.

We see this with the continued prevalence of conflict-related sexual violence, including the horrific assaults on Ukrainian women and girls over the past three years of war, and in many other countries across the world, in particular in Sudan at the current time.

Dr Mukwege’s foundation has been working in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion of 2022 to provide comprehensive support to victims of sexual violence. Earlier this year, his Panzi Hospital in DRC hosted a delegation from Ukraine to learn more about his holistic approach to treating victims of conflict-related sexual violence, underscoring how interconnected global conflicts and human experience can be.   

All of this underscores that it is an imperative of both climate justice and conflict resolution that people are held responsible for their actions and inactions.

I have been particularly impressed by Ukraine’s efforts, led by the Office of the Prosecutor General, to take steps to hold Russia to account for the damage it has wrought. The pursuit of accountability has been the second pillar in the work of the High Level Working Group.

The final pillar of work that the group has been driving is the realisation of a green reconstruction and environmental recovery. I have been impressed to see the Action Plan, coordinated by the Ministry of Environment, that is carrying forward work to address the recommendations of the group that were captured in our report issued earlier this year.

Such a recovery will require a massive national and international effort, but I would like to focus on one critical element. As I noted, women are disproportionately affected by both the climate and nature crisis and conflict, but they are also the source of essential leadership to respond to both.

Looking globally, women’s leadership can be much better leveraged to address the climate and nature crisis in fragile and conflict-affected settings. For example, funding support to women’s organisations in those settings, which is far behind the UN Secretary-General’s target of 1% of Official Development Assistance, can greatly expand women’s agency in addressing these interlinked crises. 

In the Ukraine context, I would encourage particular attention to ensuring that the great capacity that lies within women’s leadership is fully leveraged.

The working group produced an Environmental Compact for Ukraine that collected 50 recommendations, framed under these three pillars of monitoring the damage, ensuring accountability and mobilising a green recovery.

The document was endorsed by President Zelenskyy, and a national effort has been launched to implement it, coordinated under an action plan.

Ukraine will need support to realise this innovative and ambitious plan – so I call on the international community present here at COP29 to step forward and offer its support, whether that is through expert technical advice of financial resources.

We have an opportunity to establish a new norm for how environment is prioritised during conflict, to ensure that Nature is no longer a ‘silent victim of war’.

Looking back over recent years, I welcome that the debates under UNFCCC have tackled the intersection between climate and conflict, under the “Climate Responses for Sustaining Peace” initiative at COP 27 and the Declaration on Climate, Relief, Recovery and Peace at COP 28. This year and at all future COPs, I hope this close connection can be maintained – we cannot solve those problems in isolation from each other.  

Today’s topic - emissions from military activities – represents a clear gap. They were not fully covered by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol or the 2015 Paris Agreement, with states having reservations on the ground of national security concerns. 

So the innovative work being presented here today is a welcome addition to increasing our understanding, and establishing mechanisms to tackle, this element of the climate crisis.

Let me close by again expressing my admiration and appreciation of the efforts being made by Ukraine, its leadership, civil society and academic community, to document the environmental damage of this illegal war of aggression, and doing so in the face of such adversity. 

The world can learn a lot from Ukraine’s leadership, including its efforts to document environmental damage and the scale of carbon emissions that are attributable to the war, its national efforts to seek accountability, and its commitment to a green recovery.

But it needs our support, now more than ever, in its efforts to implement the Environmental Compact for Ukraine, and for its broader pursuit of a just and sustainable peace.

The need for solidarity and long-term commitment to Ukraine has never been higher, and the world must step up.

Thank you.