Ted Kronmiller on Ukraine’s Green Reconstruction and Climate Finance
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Diplomatic Legal Hub
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2026/10/08
By Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Independent Journalist and DLH Coordinator
How can climate finance, decentralized energy, and diplomacy strengthen Ukraine’s wartime resilience and green reconstruction.
Biography and Interview Overview
Ted Kronmiller is a Climate Finance Strategist and Managing Director, Financial Institutions, at Capturiant. His work spans sustainable investment, risk management, bioenergy, carbon markets, and Ukraine’s green reconstruction. He has worked in over 25 countries on mobilizing capital toward Paris-aligned climate investment, sustainable economic development and decarbonization of hard-to-abate sectors.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Ted Kronmiller discuss Ukraine’s green reconstruction through climate finance, diplomacy, and decentralized energy. They examine EU policy alignment, carbon markets, war risk insurance, bioenergy, and battery storage. Kronmiller argues that international investment can strengthen resilience, support communities, and complement diplomatic efforts toward Ukraine’s sustainable economic recovery.
Diplomacy, Innovation, and EU Policy Alignment
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Today, we’re going to talk a little bit about diplomacy, economics, and wartime stuff. Ted, thank you very much for joining me today.
Ted Kronmiller: It’s a real honor to be here, Mr. Jacobsen. Thank you for having me.
Jacobsen: You characterize Ukraine as a beacon of innovation. That’s the economy, but how does the diplomatic environment provide the basis for innovation and the bolstering of that resilience? It doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens with support.
Kronmiller: Absolutely, Scott. Ukraine is a beacon of innovation, and it is an international destination for capital. That has to do with Ukrainian economic conditions, but specifically when it comes to diplomacy, I think the right way to look at this is Ukraine’s ambition and concrete steps towards integrating with the EU and integrating with the West. Ukraine has made progress towards alignment with EU standards that can help attract capital and align projects with large-scale policy frameworks that are recognized globally.
This is a major step. Ukraine is working towards alignment with the EU’s sustainable finance framework. The EU taxonomy, the European Green Bond Standard, and the Fit for 55 package are relevant reference points, but that doesn’t mean Ukraine has fully adopted all of them. In March 2025, Ukraine’s securities regulator approved a Sustainable Finance Roadmap for 2025–2030.
For a very long time, Scott, many large-scale investors, insurance companies, pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds have had commitments related to the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Europe has created very ambitious policy frameworks, but some industries are very hard to decarbonize. What I see in Ukraine is an opportunity to combine policy alignment with Ukrainian innovation because, in a lot of these communities, they’re rebuilding infrastructure.
Carbon Markets and Eco-Industrial Parks
The diplomacy aspect of it comes with policy alignment and policy adoption, and then it comes through climate innovation. You can call it climate diplomacy because Article 6 of the Paris Agreement provides mechanisms for international cooperation that can help mobilize capital for the climate transition. Ukraine has approved a legal and institutional framework for implementing Article 6, with further work needed to operationalize the mechanisms and develop its national carbon registry.
Investors looking for high decarbonization impact per dollar, favorable risk-adjusted returns, and strong contributions to the UN Sustainable Development Goals can find opportunities in Ukraine. I see enormous potential there, although the results depend on the project and how its risks are managed.
Ukraine has shown what I would call diplomatic brilliance by pursuing these frameworks and also by developing national standards. They’ve adopted a national standard for eco-industrial parks, developed with support from UNIDO and Switzerland, which came into force on September 1, 2025.
They’re using EU frameworks, the Paris Agreement, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals as reference points. My view is that, in some areas, their industry progress and innovation create an opportunity to go beyond existing approaches and leapfrog older infrastructure.
Protecting Civilian Infrastructure and Decentralizing Energy
Jacobsen: There have been significant issues in wartime under international humanitarian law. Power grids, energy infrastructure, and power plants are protected as civilian objects unless they qualify as military objectives. Even then, attacks must comply with the rules on proportionality and precautions. In a similar way, journalists are protected as civilians unless and for such time as they directly participate in hostilities.
We should be protected from attack. However, energy infrastructure is being targeted, including with drones. Can this transition be used to bolster further efforts to decentralize the energy system so we become less vulnerable to these types of strikes? In other words, there’s a further incentive to innovate, decentralize generation, and advance the Sustainable Development Goals.
Kronmiller: Scott, that’s right. You see that because Ukraine has increased its resilience, its adaptability, and its ability to improvise. When you have decentralized energy, whether it’s bioenergy, solar, or wind, you’re spreading generation across more sites. That can make it harder for a single strike to disrupt a large share of the power supply, although individual sites remain vulnerable.
Ukraine can combine that with protective measures at those sites. You’re building ways to reduce risk. If you break this down between risk reduction, resilience, and innovation, the protective measures can include the placement of physical infrastructure, protective structures, and, where effective against the particular drone, electronic countermeasures. Those measures can reduce vulnerability, but they don’t make infrastructure immune to attack.
War-Risk Insurance and Investment Protection
That’s one part. Then, in terms of war risk, you have a number of different insurance mechanisms involving the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, MIGA, and private-sector insurers and reinsurers. The National Bank of Ukraine has also worked with the government and international partners on developing a war-risk insurance framework. Coverage depends on the project, location, and policy terms.
Bioenergy, Battery Storage, and Community Resilience
What I think is really fascinating, Scott, is that you have the ability to decentralize generation capabilities. You’re decentralizing the generation of power.
You’re also doing it with technologies that can solve multiple problems in communities, like bioenergy, where you’re taking suitable organic waste streams, including agricultural residues, sewage sludge, and the organic fraction of municipal solid waste, and converting them into energy. Depending on the technology, that can provide combined heat and power for the municipality.
When it comes to the wider electricity system, rolling out battery energy storage systems, or BESS, can enhance resilience and flexibility. You’re creating stored energy reserves that can provide short-term backup and help meet peaks in demand. Batteries don’t replace damaged transmission lines, but, with the right connections and controls, they can help keep local loads supplied during disruptions.
If one area goes down, a properly configured local system can provide backup power within its capacity and for as long as its stored energy lasts. Batteries can also help meet a sudden increase in demand if people decide to charge all their EcoFlow power stations at once.
It really is quite brilliant what’s happening on a system-wide level here.
Business as Diplomacy
Jacobsen: In your experience, and we’ve got to ask some tough questions too, what comes first, diplomacy or business? Or, in some sense, can business in a humanitarian context be seen as diplomacy?
Kronmiller: Both come first. I would put capital first because the more capital we get into Ukraine, the more people we have who are invested in seeing Ukraine thrive economically and have a peaceful, sustainable future. Getting large-scale insurance companies, pension funds, and asset managers on Wall Street involved in Ukraine sends a really strong message to Washington. That sends a very strong message to the international community.
Scott, a lot of this comes down to fundamentals. When you anchor regional development with large-scale investors, that can attract a lot of the middle-tier investors. You said it perfectly. Business is a form of diplomacy because what we’re doing is combining U.S., EU, and international capital with Ukrainian innovation.
It’s that one plus one equals three. You call it synergy on Wall Street. You call it diplomacy in the international arena.
I do believe that leading with capital can catalyze business growth and complement policy-driven diplomacy.
Jacobsen: A semi-facetious but actually semi-serious comment would be that the most valuable flag to carry while you’re engaging in your humanitarian and diplomatic efforts is the color green, in an American context.
Kronmiller: And yellow and blue gives you green.
Jacobsen: Very good. I appreciate your time. Be safe. Stay alive. We need you. Thanks so much.
Kronmiller: Scott, it was great being with you today. Thank you so much. Be well. Be safe. I look forward to talking soon. Cheers. Slava Ukraini.
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