SUN4Ukraine supports Ukrainian Flagship Municipalities in developing robust Climate Neutrality Plans, helping cities align reconstruction priorities with long-term sustainability goals and accelerate progress toward climate neutrality by 2050. SUN4Ukraine is uniquely shaped by the war context in Ukraine, where disrupted systems and distorted emissions baselines mean climate planning must be closely integrated with reconstruction, requiring a flexible and adaptive approach.
CLIMATE NEUTRALITY PLANS EXPLAINED
A Climate Neutrality Plan (CNP) is a strategic roadmap that helps Ukrainian municipalities plan urban actions and investments to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, while supporting sustainable reconstruction in the context of Russia’s ongoing full-scale war of aggression and its impacts on cities and communities.
A CNP works both as a planning tool and as a way to present investment opportunities. In practice, a CNP helps municipalities decide not only what should be rebuilt, but what should be transformed, so that recovery investments reduce future emissions, strengthen resilience, and avoid locking cities back into high-carbon systems. It brings together key actions and projects into a clear portfolio that can be shared with partners, donors, investors, and funding institutions.
As reconstruction needs and city conditions evolve, the CNP acts as a living framework rather than a fixed masterplan, allowing cities to update priorities as new data, funding, and recovery needs emerge. The plans are developed by the cities through an iterative process involving the receipt of technical support and updated over time as new data and insights become available.
A CNP also builds on existing city strategies such as Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs) and Municipal Energy Plans, reusing and updating available data where possible, and expanding beyond energy to connect actions across sectors such as transport, waste, water, buildings, and urban development. Furthermore, the Law on Climate Policy sets out Ukraine’s pathway to climate neutrality by 2050 and integrates climate considerations across all areas of policy and recovery planning. It requires local authorities to approve emissions reduction and climate adaptation strategies by 30 October 2026. Climate Neutrality Plans will seek to align with and build synergies with these obligations.
Why CNPs matter for Ukraine?
As Ukraine invests in reconstruction and recovery, Climate Neutrality Plans help ensure that rebuilding efforts also support long-term sustainability and resilience. They help municipalities prioritise actions that reduce emissions, strengthen resilience, reduce dependency on fossil fuels, and deliver long-term benefits for citizens such as fuel poverty reduction, improved comfort and improved air quality.
CNPs are also increasingly important for access to EU funding, as they demonstrate strategic alignment with European climate and energy priorities and readiness to work with EU partners and financial institutions.
At the same time, CNPs share interconnected goals and complementary frameworks with Climate City Contracts developed under the EU Cities Mission, enabling twinning and peer learning with EU Mission Cities.
The five components of a
Climate Neutrality Plan
Every Climate Neutrality Plan follows a structured, step-by-step approach. Each component builds on the previous one.
Climate net-zero city baseline
This first step builds a clear picture of the city today and sets the starting point for the
plan. It brings together existing strategies, data, and evidence to assess how the city
currently functions and where the main challenges and opportunities lie.
The baseline includes an estimate of greenhouse gas emissions and an assessment of climate
risks such as war-related damage and other environmental pressures. It also helps identify
priority sectors for action and provides a basis for setting realistic targets.
Pathways to climate neutrality
This section explores different ways the city can reach climate neutrality. It develops possible scenarios and a package of actions that reduce emissions while also improving resilience to climate impacts. It includes engagement with citizens and stakeholders to ensure the plan reflects local needs and priorities.
Achieving climate neutrality
This part explains how the plan will be put into practice. It outlines governance arrangements, monitoring and reporting approaches, and how progress will be tracked over time. It also defines how city departments and stakeholders will coordinate during implementation.
Current state of climate investment
This section looks at how climate-related actions are currently financed. It reviews existing city budgets, identifies barriers to investing in climate projects, maps available funding sources, and assesses the city’s overall financial capacity
Investment pathways toward climate neutrality
This section focuses on how the transition will be funded. It estimates investment needs, identifies financing options, clarifies who pays for what, and considers how risks can be managed.
Key sectors included in
Climate Neutrality Plans
CNPs take a whole-city approach, integrating policies and data from all major urban sectors into one coherent framework.
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Sectors included in CNPs:
- Energy
- Waste and circular economy
- Industries
- Green infrastructure and nature-based solutions
- Buildings
- Mobility and transport
- Water
How SUN4Ukraine supports
Flagship Municipalities
Technical
planning support
Practical, hands-on guidance through the full CNP process, from establishing baselines and
setting climate neutrality targets to defining mitigation actions and structuring the plan. The
SUN4Ukraine team reviews drafts, provides sector-specific guidance, and runs advisory sessions
to address technical questions.
Capacity Building
Programme
A structured programme of workshops, training sessions, and peer to peer learning. It starts
with an overview of the CNP guidance, followed by deep dives into specific sections and
technical workshops on mitigation measures and investment planning. The programme includes
twinning with EU Mission Cities and strengthens municipalities’ ability to integrate resilience
and adaptation into their planning, engage citizens and stakeholders, and access funding and
financing opportunities.
Governance and
policy dialogue
SUN4Ukraine supports dialogue between different levels of government and provides policy
recommendations to improve coordination, support plan implementation, and help cities access
financing more easily.
Scaling beyond
Flagship Municipalities
SUN4Ukraine is designed not only to support Flagship Municipalities, but also to develop a model that can be replicated across Ukraine through the Ukrainian City Climate Hub (UCCH).
Through the UCCH, the project will share guidance and tools developed with Flagship
Municipalities and scale the Capacity Building
Programme so that more Ukrainian cities can
develop Climate Neutrality Plans in the future.
By embedding climate neutrality planning into Ukraine’s reconstruction processes, SUN4Ukraine
helps
ensure that cities are not only rebuilt, but rebuilt to be resilient, sustainable, and prepared
for the
realities of a changing climate.
