BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 20. Given the energy-intensive nature of Kazakhstan's economy and its dependence on fossil fuels, Asian Development Bank (ADB) will pay particular attention to supporting the government’s Strategy on achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, while ensuring its development and energy needs are met, Nariman Mannapbekov, ADB Country Director for Kazakhstan, told Trend.
He said this in regard to the specific measures or projects that will be implemented by ADB to ensure a more sustainable economy in Kazakhstan as part of a new 5-year country partnership strategy (CPS) recently adopted by ADB for Kazakhstan.
According to him, the ADB will support reforming the country’s energy sector in electricity and heating through both knowledge, advisory, and non-sovereign investments.
"We have already approved financing for a major coal-to-gas transition project in Almaty city and helped prepare a draft national legislation on the modernization of heating in the Almaty district," he said.
Furthermore, he noted that active transaction advisory services for private and public-private partnership (PPP) investments will help to scale up the use of renewable energy sources, which accounted for only 3 percent of the total installed generation capacity in 2020.
According to the country director, ADB will continue supporting Kazakhstan in developing solar, wind, biomass, hydropower projects and other renewables as feasible as well as energy storage.
"To accelerate the decommissioning of coal-fired electricity and heat generation, which contributes more than 80 percent of the country's total greenhouse gas emissions, ADB has begun exploring opportunities to accelerate the retirement of coal and other fossil fuel plants in Kazakhstan and replace or repurpose them with clean energy under the bank’s Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM) program," Mannapbekov added.
ADB’s ETM is a scalable, replicable program that uses concessional and commercial capital to retire or repurpose existing coal and other fossil fuel plants on an accelerated schedule, replacing them with clean power capacity. ETM is one of many ADB initiatives that can help Asia and the Pacific mitigate the worst impacts of climate change such as extreme sea level rises and destructive weather events.