REPRESENTATIVES OF TURKMENISTAN DISCUSS CLIMATE CHANGE WITH FOREIGN PARTNERS

Today, representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment Protection and the Academy of Sciences have participated in an online meeting of the Technology Executive Committee of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), taking place from November 17 to November 20.

The objective of the meeting, organized by the UNFCCC Secretariat (the city of Bonn, Germany) is to discuss the role of modern technologies in combating climate change.

The importance of Turkmenistan’s participation in the meeting is highlighted by the fact that President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has proposed important initiatives in this field, constantly demonstrating our country’s readiness to be actively engaged in tacking major global challenges. One of the proposed initiatives is to establish an Ashgabat-based Regional Center for Climate Change Technologies for Central Asia.

Over the last few decades, climate change has become one of the most serious environmental challenges facing humanity. To undertake concerted efforts to control the global negative processes, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change came into force on March 21, 1994 and now has a membership of 197 parties.

The Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, which were adopted later and supplemented the UNFCCC, became the most important international environmental acts of the 20th century, designed to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases and lessen the adverse effect of human activity on the world’s climate.

Adopted in 2012, ahead of the Rio+20 Conference, the National Climate Change Strategy of Turkmenistan serves as a vivid illustration of our country’s active environmental policy and strict adherence to international environmental conventions.

In September, 2019, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov approved the revised National Strategy, having launched a new stage in our country’s sustained efforts to respond to climate change and to bring the main spheres of production up to environmental safety standards.

Central Asia with its arid continental climate, considerable seasonal and daily temperature fluctuations and uneven distribution of precipitation is one of the most sensitive and vulnerable to climate change regions.

Playing an important role in the region, our country is today actively involved in a number of climate research programs established by relevant international organizations, while implementing joint environmental projects, making massive tree-planting and biodiversity conservation efforts. These all are illustrative examples of the state environmental policy carried out by the nation’s leader.

Initiated by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, the National Climate Change Strategy of Turkmenistan aims to work out effective measures aimed at facilitating the country’s low emission development, helping priority sectors to adapt to climate change, and ensuring sustainable economic growth, including food, water and environmental security.

This, in turn, implies the priority of high-tech industries, the creation of enabling conditions for building a green economy as a core foundation for the operation of the country’s infrastructure system.

Interestingly, the environmental policy of the President of Turkmenistan is not only limited to taking a technocratic approach, it goes far beyond, targeting at the spiritual and moral education of the society and encouraging people to be more environmentally conscious and to protect nature.

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