Kyoto Provides Hope for New Environmental Projects

Although Kyrgyzstan now has the chance to vie for international funding for carbon emission reduction projects under the Kyoto protocol, it lacks the infrastructure to properly implement and regulate proposed plans.



Leading World Bank environmental expert Helmut Schreiber has announced that Kyrgyzstan will be able to compete for developed nation funding for environmental projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.



At a press conference held in Bishkek on February 7, Schreiber said that Kyrgyzstan can use the mechanisms of the Kyoto protocol to attract investment in new environmental projects.



Kyoto protocol was ratified by three Central Asian countries – Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan - and came into force on February 2005.



Nurzat Abdrasulova, director of the environmental fund Unison, explains that developed countries that have agreed to the protocol are obliged to reduce their carbon gas emissions, the main greenhouse gasses that cause global warming, to the level they were was in 1990.



Those that cannot meet their targets must compensate by buying gas emission quotas from other countries or fund emission-reduction projects.



Kyrgyzstan has a good chance of participating in such “carbon funding” schemes, but does not have the structures in place to coordinate environmental projects, says Abdrasulova. But that may soon change.



Mirlan Aldayarov, operations manager of the World Bank in Kyrgyzstan, has told NBCentralAsia that last year Kyrgyzstan applied to the United Nations agency for carbon funding to set up such mechanisms. A committee to regulate environmental projects will be put together when it has been registered with the UN.



Potential projects within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol include reducing carbon emissions in Kyrgyzstan’s city dumps, large farms, industrial plants, factories and sewage systems.



“Projects [in Kyrgyzstan must] reduce carbon dioxide emissions by at least 50,000 tonnes per year. Funding for these projects could cost as much as 500,000 US dollars,” said Aldayarov.



But among 25 potential projects in Kyrgyzstan, only two - in the gas and energy sector - can reduce emissions enough to meet the targets.



Getting funding for Kyrgyzstan might be difficult given that it does not have a very high level of carbon emissions, and participating countries may prefer to place their money elsewhere.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)