Ukraine, battling political crisis, is having to find ways to finish spending $800 million it earned through Kyoto Protocol emissions rights sales, after Japanese officials warned Kiev it had a year before Tokyo would demand its money back.
Andriy Mokhnyk, Ukraine's incoming environment minister, said the country was in a "difficult situation" as it had not yet spent all the money earned through selling Kyoto carbon credits called Assigned Amount Units (AAUs) to buyers including Japan, Spain and the World Bank.
Under several AAU deals agreed to with buyers, Ukraine was to have funded more than 500 clean energy and energy efficiency projects by the end of 2012, but the country missed the deadline and Mokhnyk said spending had ground to a halt in late 2013.