On April 22, the Earth Day 2023, Svitlana Romanko, the strong voice of Ukrainian civil society and advocate for climate action joins the call of global environmental movement to the world’s political and business leaders to invest strategically in a clean energy future.
“Earth Day 2023 is marked with three interlinked challenges for humanity – the war of aggression, climate crisis and addiction to fossil fuels. Rapid, war-time-pace transition to clean energy is the ultimate solution for all three of them. Investing in our planet takes courage to break business as usual and confront the vested interests. This is what real leaders should do”, – says Svitlana Romanko, Founder and Director of Razom We Stand.
Razom We Stand argues that global leaders can help to make Ukraine the first country in the world to rely only on clean energy by investing in its renewable energy reconstruction. Therefore, the phase-out from fossil fuels and a durable shift to renewable energy would benefit the future peace and stability not only of Ukraine but also of the whole of Europe and the world.
To prepare for next winter while facing ongoing Russian attacks on the energy grid, Ukraine’s cities and communities need a reconstruction based on resilient decentralized renewable energy solutions, specifically for critical infrastructure. This would strengthen the country's energy security, while also contributing to climate action.
“Our message on Earth Day is that rebuilding Ukraine on renewable energy is the best investment in the future of our planet. The US and G7 leaders could help Ukraine to become the first post-war country in the world rebuilt on renewable energy and eventually to create a global showcase for infrastructure-centered climate action”, – says Romanko.
From October 2022, Ukraine was under massive attacks by Russia that caused huge damage to the electricity system of the country, leaving millions of people without electricity for months during cold winter. Furthermore, this caused interruptions in power supply affecting the function of municipal utilities, heat and water supply and created a number of wide-spread blackouts.
Svitlana Romanko is an environmental lawyer, and Founder and Director of Razom We Stand, a Ukrainian organization active internationally with a strong record of strategic campaigning for drying up Russian exports of climate damaging fossil fuels, which have funded the Russian invasion, missile attacks on civilian infrastructure and thousands of war crimes against Ukraine.
Mrs Romanko has appeared in top-tier international press including CNN, NBC, Washington Post, Bloomberg, BBC, Der Spiegel and Le Monde, a detailed list is here.
Professional photos of Svitlana Romanko are available here, copyright free unless otherwise noted on image.
Press contact:
Oleh Savytskyi
press@razomwestand.org
