As Central Asian countries emerge from the COVID-19 crisis and work towards net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change, the OECD held a regional policy dialogue on Thursday, 23 September to discuss ways to overcome challenges and identify opportunities for modernisation and innovation in the energy sector.
Ahead of the UN Climate Conference COP26 in Glasgow in November 2021 and following the stark warning by the latest assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which points to the urgent need to accelerate the race to net zero, this regional dialogue will focus on how Central Asian countries can:
- learn from each other to better integrate long-term low emissions development strategies into their planning objectives for the energy sector;
- accelerate improvements to framework conditions to attract more private-capital and private-led R&D into renewables and other low-emission energy projects; and
- win public support for the reform of harmful fossil-fuel subsidies.
