Speaking at the closing government sitting on February 9, the President of Turkmenistan ordered special attention be paid to improving the professional skills of oil and gas industry specialists, introducing digital technologies and reducing the negative impact of the oil and gas sector on the environment and human health, namely, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In this regard, week-long consultations on the mitigation plans in view of the recent accession of Turkmenistan to the Global Methane Pledge, the aspects of implementation of these plans in partnerships with international organisations and the implementation of the Paris Agreement, ratified by Turkmenistan in 2016, were held with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan in Ashgabat. Both documents follow from and are synergistic with the provisions of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to which our country acceded in 1995. A two-day meeting, which was held at the building complex of Turkmenistan’s oil and gas industry involving the UN experts, was the first and most attended event of the “Methane Week”. The National Focal Point of Turkmenistan for UNFCCC Batyr BALLIYEV commented on the significance of the climate-methane agreements and activities:
“Turkmenistan aims significant efforts in the field of climate action at implementing the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) of Turkmenistan, developed as part of the implementation of the Paris Agreement and approved by the Presidential Resolution in 2022. To understand what kind of document this is, let us turn to 2012, when the National Strategy for Climate Change (NSCC) was adopted, which created a new precedent for strengthening climate action in the country. Henceforth, all departmental and sectoral plans and strategic documents were developed in line with the provisions of the Strategy. Now domestic ecologists and climatologists are using the updated document adopted after Turkmenistan’s ratification of the Paris Climate Agreement. The new NSCC was approved by the Resolution of the President of Turkmenistan in 2019, and the Nationally Determined Contribution was developed with the coordination of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan. It says the country is committed to reaching a 30% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 from the business-as-usual level in 2010. It should be clarified that a specific action plan with activities, implementers, deadlines and others needed to be developed for this strategic document to start working. This work brought together specialists from ministries and departments, joined by experts of international organisations. The areas of the NDC action are distributed in the tables of the contributions to adaptation and mitigation and are reflected in the country framework under the Paris Agreement.
