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Kyrgyzstan focuses on climate change

04.03.2014

In Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 47 climate change practitioners, scientists and researchers met with government and non-governmental organization representatives on February 25, 2014, to discuss institutional and political frameworks for coping and adapting to changing climate in the mountainous Central Asian country.  The event took the form of a panel discussion and was organized by the State Agency of Environment Protection and Forestry (SAEPF), Climate Change Coordination Commission of Kyrgyz Republic (CCCCKR) and the Climate Network of Kyrgyzstan (CNK) with support from the Central Asia Mountain Partnership Hub.  .

In their keynote presentations, Jyparkul Bekkulova, Head of the SAEPF  Strategy and Policy Departmentand Zuhra Abaihanova, Executive Secretary of the Kyrgyz Climate Change Coordination Commission,highlighted the need to respond effectively to the changes already taking place. Nurzat Abdyrasulova, Director of UNISON, an NGO based in Kyrgyzstan, informed the gathering of the government’s efforts to address the institutional challenges of improved coordination and prioritization of national level interventions for six priority sectors.

National efforts to address climate change were underscored, such as the Kyrgyz government’s commitment to reduce emissions by 20 percent by 2020. As mountainous Kyrgyzstan hosts nearly half of Central Asia’s glaciers, its role as water tower for the neighbouring downstream countries was emphasized by the discussants.  

Concrete examples of adaptation practices, mostly at local village and province level, were presented by various organizations engaged in climate-related work. Mountain Partnership members – the Climate Network of Kyrgyzstan (CNK); the BIOM Ecological Movement; Mountain Societies Development Support Programme; the Association of Forest and Land Users of Kyrgyzstan; and the Kyrgyz Sustainable Energy Financing Facility (a programme on Energy Efficiency in Buildings funded by EBRD and implemented by UNISON) - shared local-level adaptation practices, such as green houses, drip irrigation, energy-efficient technologies, improving insulation, renewable energy. The CNK itself unites 16 organizations, most of which are Mountain Partnership members, that work actively on climate change issues in Kyrgyzstan.

Summarizing the meeting, Elbegzaya Batjargal of the Central Asia Mountain Partnership Hub reiterated the need for continued multi-stakeholder policy dialogues on climate change and informed the participants of the Mountain Partnership Hub’s intention to support the Climate Network of Kyrgyzstan and UNISON to hold a series of such thematic panel discussions in 2014, and invited all mountain stakeholders to actively contribute to the process of integrating the mountain agenda into climate change interventions. 

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