In the first days of the horrific russian invasion of Ukraine, Svitlana Romanko, Ukrainian environmental lawyer and climate campaigner, was driven to establish the Stand With Ukraine campaign on March 4, 2022. In the framework of this campaign, a letter calling on world leaders to end the global fossil fuel addiction that finances putin’s war was distributed. It was a huge success, collecting signatures from more than 860 organizations in 60 countries. This resulted in a further high-impact global campaign to sanction russian fossil fuels, cease all investments into russian energy infrastructure, and phase out fossil fuels globally. As a result of our organising and passionated work of many partners across the globe the EU, US, UK and Canada and later G7 countries have sanctioned russian coal and oil and dramatically decreased their demand for gas. This campaign also led to a shift in narratives and paved the way for an effective embargo and sanctions on russian fossil fuels and escalated the renewable energy transition in the EU.
Razom We Stand was set up in June 2022, emerging directly from the Stand With Ukraine campaign as a new international Ukrainian organization. Its main goal is to accelerate the global transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, while continuing to push for a complete embargo of the russian oil and gas industry. The creation of Razom We Stand benefited from strong support and actions from numerous national and international strategic partners.
Our organization is now well-established as the main voice against fossil fuel dictators and war profiteers. We will further enhance and expand our activities in line with our long-term strategy. In particular, the work of the organization will further support international efforts to drive the contraction and demise of the fossil fuel industry in russia, to prevent its expansion elsewhere and to build on the achievements of the Stand With Ukraine campaign.
The overarching focus of our work is to turn supply side climate policies into real political action. Our key message is that international efforts and governmental policies in response to russian aggression should aim for accelerating a drop in oil, gas and coal production by russian companies, making their reserves unrecoverable and permanently buried in the ground. We support practical steps towards the adoption of supply side climate policies and the establishment of a new universal climate treaty that would explicitly aim for a fossil fuel phaseout, together with appropriate international mechanisms, and with a key focus on stopping the violence of petro dictators.
During the months since its inception, Razom We Stand has been active and influential in a number of key areas:
To start with, our organization’s work has provided critical input to the UN Climate Summit COP27. During the summit, Razom We Stand called upon global leaders to guarantee future peace in Ukraine and Europe by defunding the fossil fuel industry, especially in russia, and to support a green rebuilding of post-war Ukraine. Specifically, our organization rolled out a number of impactful actions during COP27: Svitlana Romanko confronted the russian ministers, referring to russia as a terrorist state that commits genocide, torture and daily killings, and stating that russian oil and gas is killing Ukraine. When the Razom We Stand delegation was forcibly removed as a result, and their UN COP27 badges were suspended as a result, this went viral on social media. Romanko also confronted Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and CEO of Total Energies, during the summit, pressing him on the need to stop backing russia. Moreover, Romanko met high-level officials from the European Committee of the Regions’ Working Group on Ukraine. The meeting aimed to increase pressure on the EU to shift from purchasing russian fuel, and build partnerships to support Ukrainian green recovery.
Razom We Stand also organised a number of side events during the summit, such as two major press conferences and events at the official COP27 Ukrainian Pavilion with high-level discussions. These events included an event with the Centre for Economic Recovery, a top level meeting between Svitlana Romanko and Svenja Schulze, German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development in which Romanko explained the vital need for Germany to offer concrete support for a green rebuilding of Ukraine, and a press conference with Ukrainian Climate Network, Global Witness and Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) on the role of Turkey in creating an outlet for continued russian fossil fuel exports to the EU and US regardless of sanctions.
Speaking for Razom We Stand about the summit, Svitlana Romanko was quoted by the Guardian that "[t]he EU needs to step-up, act more globally and ban all fossil fuels. We also demand that US institutions divest the billions they have invested in Russia’s carbon bombs.”
As regards the green recovery of Ukraine, Razom We Stand has been working hard with government contacts to drive forward the theme of a Green Rebuilding of Ukraine. This has paid off when the Ukrainian President Zelensky used our talking points at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum: "Ukraine is capable of becoming a key partner of the European Union for the purposes of decarbonization. We will become one of the main suppliers of green hydrogen and green electricity in the EU." The issue of Ukraine’s green recovery was also raised and discussed during a side event in the Ukrainian Pavilion at COP27 where Andrius Kubilius, Member of the European Parliament and chair of United for Ukraine inter parliamentary network, called for the creation of a “Green Marshall Plan” for Ukraine.
Stay tuned for our second part on Monday 20th February 2023.
