Initiative: Mykolaiv – Sun City

Location: Mykolaiv, Mykolaiv Oblast

Year: 2019-2021

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/100renewablesforplanet/ (in Russian and Ukrainian)

The Initiative Mykolaiv – Sun City is dedicated to confronting the climate emergency and is campaigning for Mykolaiv to fully switch to renewable energy by 2050, which would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As a city in southern Ukraine, Mykolaiv gets plenty of sunshine and, therefore, has tremendous potential to obtain enough solar energy (which is why the initiative is called “Sun City”).

The campaign collected more than 4,000 signatures from local people who are calling for a transition to renewable energy. The initiative started discussions with the city council and carried out a number of activities to engage with the public in addressing the issue, such as an online survey establishing which topics related to climate change the population are most worried about.

In August 2020, the campaign achieved a major success: the initiative organized an online conference on the city's energy and climate security with the participation of representatives from the municipal authorities, businesses, the general public, and academia. Subsequently, the Mykolaiv City Council approved the city's entry into the “Energy Transition” coalition, thereby committing itself to replacing fossil fuels with energy produced without the release of carbon dioxide. The next step should be to create an action plan that will include concrete steps the city must take to achieve this goal.