PROJECTS

The Town of the XXI Century
Series of reports on ecological situation in Central Asia

Kazakhstan: dimensions of sustainable development

Combating expansion of deserts

Deserts constitute almost 66% of the overall 180 million hectares of the territory of Kazakhstan. Expansion of deserts is a result of the combination of natural factors and human actions related to utilization of land, water and forests. Many experts believe that of all human actions development of the so called “virgin lands” in 1950s served as the key contributing factor stimulating expansion of deserts. Semi-dry areas could not provide high crop yields while aggressive development of these regions led to extreme degradation of soils. Consequently, after 1980 within eight years more than 50% of cultivated “virgin lands” had being abandoned. Wind erosion has turned some more of the “virgin lands” into deserts. The rest of the territory has suffered as a result of excessive growth of cattle herds, poorly planned harvesting, distorted crops circulation, poor maintenance of drainage and irrigation systems, development of space and military testing ranges. Overall, currently expansion of deserts is reaching catastrophic proportions. Crop yields experience sharp drops, cattle herds dwindle and people have to abandon ever expanding areas of barren lands.

Following the national long-term development strategy “Kazakhstan-2030”, the country has created 2002-2011 National action plan to combat expansion of deserts. Specific actions have been outlined, but no visible results have been achieved so far.

Global Warming

The UN experts warn that by 2050 carbon dioxide concentration in the planet’s atmosphere can be twice as high as the pre-industrial era level. By 2100 the Earth surface temperature may increase by 1-3.5 degrees Celsius, provided that the world will continue to use different types of fuels. As a result of these changes, we might witness devastating storms and floods, melting glaciers and raising levels of ocean waters. Certain biological types will disappear and overall ecological system will suffer huge losses.

Kazakhstan is responsible for fairly significant volumes of pollutants and greenhouse gases being emitted into the atmosphere. Of the total amount of emissions non-ferrous metallurgy plants are responsible for 23% of emissions, ferrous metallurgy plants account for 17%, oil & gas enterprises – 10% and other enterprises are responsible for 20% of emissions. Motor vehicles and railroads make the situation even worse.

Atmospheric air pollution levels in many cities of the country exceeds maximum acceptable concentrations by a number of parameters, such as dust, nitrate dioxide and sulfurdioxide.

Kazakhstan ratified UN Framework Convention on climate change. In 1999 the country signed Kyoto Protocol and voluntarily accepted responsibilities for reducing greenhouses gases emissions. In 2000 Kazakhstan established an inter-agency commission on climate change and ozone layer protection. In 2001 Kazakhstan joined UN EEC Convention “On long-distance cross-border atmospheric pollution”. In 2002 the country adopted a Law “On atmospheric air protection”. However, real changes are yet to be seen. And, most likely, real changes will take place only if clean energy-saving technologies replace today’s wasteful ones.

Sustainable Society Development

Civil society has to be created to address sustainable development issues. Currently there are more than 3000 ecological NGOs operating in Kazakhstan. Ecological organizations work in such spheres as environmental protection, ecological education, radiation security, animal life protection, civil and ecological initiatives support, legal and legislative issues. Some NGOs focus their activities in particular regions such as Aral Sea region, Caspian Sea area, Balkhash lake region. Kazakhstan’s NGOs have joined their forces in the framework of Kazakhstan NGOs’ Ecological Forum.

Kazakhstan has ratified Orhus Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters. The country hosts conferences and seminars playing a major role in public opinion development promoting sustainable development ideas and attracting attention of the national government and international organizations.

Specialized and general interest media outlets provide regular coverage of environmental protection and sustainable development issues. In other words, specific measures are being undertaken to mobilize widespread public support for profound societal changes. Unfortunately, these efforts have not yielded major results. Signatures gathered against foreign nuclear wastes burial in Kazakhstan stand as an exception from the overall trend. Government of Kazakhstan has abandoned the nuclear wastes burial project.

Why do not the programs work?

As we have seen the Government of Kazakhstan adopted a number of programs which should have addressed sustainable development issues accounting for the XXI Century Agenda requirements. There are also proposed programs for the future. But will they be more effective? To answer the question let us briefly analyze the government’s economic programs.

It is strikingly obvious that all programs devote extremely limited attention to ecological issues. None of the programs has a special ecology-related section. One can easily guess that lack of attention to ecological matters results from an acute lack of funding. Even Aral Sea and Semipalatinsk testing range projects have been scaled back.

It is also important to note that economic reforms taking place in Kazakhstan and leading to some positive results at the same time had some negative social and economic consequences. Macroeconomic stabilization and growing industrial output have been paid for with rapid deterioration in the living standards of the vast majority of the country’s population and increased social tensions. Some Kazakhstani experts express doubts regarding irreversible nature of macroeconomic stabilization and its apparent durability.

As an example, let us take a look at the 1997 Pension Law, which paved the way for Kazakhstan’s pension reform. The Law calls for a transfer from solidarity to savings pension system. However, the greatest challenge is that the Law was developed rapidly without careful attention to details. Currently it is totally unclear how thousands of unemployed, particularly in the country’s rural areas, will survive during their pension years and how workers can make sure that enterprises accurately transfer their honestly earned pension funds. As a reference, currently employers throughout the country owe their employees more than 25 billion tenge (165 million USD)!

Within last several years social welfare of the country’s population has drastically deteriorated. Many types of social welfare support have been discontinued. Small and medium size business development programs were never implemented as intended. Micro credits program (offering 400 USD micro credits) amounted to scarcely more than a PR trick since it is hard to imagine a business with 400 USD start-up capital. Most borrowers spent 400 USD to buy food and clothing. Employment facilitation program was dead-born since no credit lines were available to augment prescribed actions. Current levels of pensions, welfare outlays and minimum wages are far below the poverty line.

Currently National Ecological Center for Sustainable Development in cooperation with non-governmental organizations, USAID, UNDP and other international organizations is searching for the country’s sustainable development model. However, long-term society development goals seem to contradict with current social and economic development objectives in a country with particularly low standards of living. For example, sustainable development models call for environmental protection expenditures amounting to 3-15% of the country’s GDP, which is totally unrealistic at the current stage of development. Most importantly, plans and programs designed by various ministries and agencies are agency-specific and lack clarity and cohesion, thus leading to sporadic distribution of limited resources allocated to address environmental issues. Moreover, executive branch undergoes constant reorganizations and it is often impossible to find particular people responsible for execution of certain decisions. Since 1992 environment-related government agencies have been reorganized more than 10 times. There are more than 3000 ecological NGOs operating in Kazakhstan. However, their role in resolving ecological issues is fairly limited. Hence, the overall conclusion is that Kazakhstan needs a national program of economic ecologisation.

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