JUNE 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan has reduced flaring off excess gas at oil producing plants by 50% over the last two years, Anita Georgia a World Bank official said in an interview with Bloomberg.The World Bank is pushing for countries to reduce flaring.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
JUNE 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s government set a series of low price rates for energy generated from renewable resources, media reported, part of drive to increase the proportion of green power it uses. Kazakhstan has said it wants renewable energy usage to make up 40% of its power consumption by 2050.
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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)
JUNE 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – An appeals court in Atyrau upheld an earlier $730m fine against the consortium developing the Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian for environmental damage. The fine was originally imposed for excessive gas flaring after an accident in September 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)
MAY 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan has taken another big step towards opening Asia’s first carbon market. The European Energy Exchange (EEX), based in Leipzig in Germany, said it had signed a deal with company called Caspi JSC to help develop the carbon emissions trading scheme, media reported.
A carbon emissions market has existed in Europe for several years and Kazakhstan wants to tap into this knowledge. It’s an ambitious project but one that would benefit both Kazakhstan’s environment and its profile in Asia.
Media quoted Yelnar Nadyrgaliyev, chairman of the board of Caspi JSC.
“EEX has high expertise in operating a regulated market for emissions trading,” he said. “We are pleased to be able to benefit from that as this will be a crucial success factor in establishing an emissions market in Kazakhstan.”
Kazakhstan signed up to the Kyoto Protocols in 2009. This is the international standard, named after the Japanese city in which the treaty was signed, by which countries measure their carbon emissions output. They pledged to reduce them to below 1990 levels.
Kazakhstan is still pumping out roughly 20% less carbon emissions today than it was in 1990, when big business was booming during the Soviet Union, but since the mid-2000s its output has shot up by 40%.
Perhaps understanding that action was needed, and probably with an eye on the green agenda of his centrepiece EXPO-2017, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev introduced a cap on emissions by the country’s top 178 companies.
These companies need to, theoretically, buy credit to increase emissions. Not surprisingly, they’re not happy.
Regardless, signing up EEX, Europe’s largest power market, is an important step to creating a genuine carbon emissions trading market in Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 186, published on May 28 2014)
May 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek police arrested Russian businessman Alexander Pozdeev in Tashkent, media reported. Mr Pozdeev is, reportedly, head of the Zapadno-Uralsky Machine- Building Factory in Russia. Media reports were unclear exactly why police had arrested Mr Pozdeev although they said it may be linked to an environmental accident.
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(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)
May 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A row is brewing in Armenia over whether banks should write off loans to farmers as a form of compensation for damage to their crops caused by a cold snap in March.
Despite pressure from farming unions, Armenia’s Central Bank chief, Artur Javadyan, said that banks could not simply write-off the loans.
Mr Javadyan said that banks could not risk financing farmers who already receive beneficial loan rates. The government partly pays the interest on loans to farmers.
“We have no right to force the banks to risk deposit holders’ and stockholders’ funds,” he said according to reports.
A heavy snow storm on March 30 seriously damaged crops in Armenia and farmers have asked for compensation. The row highlights just how important farming is in Armenia.
Rural Armenia is poor and the farmers often merely scrape a living. They are heavily reliant on loans and beneficial rates from the government.
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(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)
APRIL 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — More and more foreign tourists are heading to Nukus in Karkalpakstan, western Uzbekistan, to visit the dried up Aral Sea, the Eurasianet website reported. The Aral Sea had been a major inland sea but Soviet water systems siphoned off water and it shrivelled to a fraction of its size.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
MARCH 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan plans to spend $1b modernising its irrigation systems over the next five years, the state-linked UzDaily website reported. Uzbekistan’s Soviet-era water systems needs updating. Uzbekistan government’s is keen on delivering eye-catching initiatives, although their effectiveness is questionable.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Pollution and poor irrigation management have killed off much of the fish in Lake Sevan in Armenia, media quoted experts as saying. Lake Sevan is one of the world’s biggest fresh water lakes and one of Armenia’s main tourist attractions.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — It’s not just Western mining companies in Kyrgyzstan that have come under pressure to pay extra fines. Kyrgyz media reported that the local authorities in northern Kyrgyzstan want the Chinese-run Taldy Bulak Levoberezhni gold mine to pay $143m every year for environmental damage. Chinese firms are generally unpopular in Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
