The President of Turkmenistan met with the head of the UN Environment Program
President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedov held a meeting with the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations Inger Andersen on the sidelines of the COP28 Conference.
Turkmenistan defines climate change as a factor affecting sustainable development and actively supported the Paris Climate Agreement, ratifying it in October 2016, and, in accordance with its commitments, adopted a new version of the National Climate Change Strategy in September 2019, Serdar Berdimuhamedov noted during the meeting. This is reported by TDH.
In May 2022, our country's nationally determined contribution to the fulfillment of obligations under the Paris Agreement was approved, which was submitted to the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Currently, the 4th National Communication on Climate Change is being actively prepared with the support of UNEP.
Since solving environmental problems involves multilateral cooperation and coordination of states' actions with the United Nations, Turkmenistan proposes to create a Regional Center for Climate Technologies for Central Asian countries with headquarters in Ashgabat.
Serdar Berdimuhamedov expressed hope that the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Ministry of Environmental Protection of Turkmenistan and UNEP will become the basis for joint work in this direction.
During the meeting, cooperation on reducing methane emissions into the atmosphere was called an urgent topic on the international agenda. Turkmenistan has announced its accession to the Global Methane Commitment and intends to continue cooperation with international organizations and partner States to fulfill its terms.
A joint project with the International Observatory on Methane Emissions is also being prepared, within the framework of which a series of trainings for Turkmen specialists, joint scientific research, and improvement of legislation in this area are planned.
The Aral issues were touched upon and the steps taken by Turkmenistan during the chairmanship of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea from 2017 to 2019 were noted. Attention was also paid to the Caspian theme, including Turkmenistan's proposal to create the Caspian Environmental Initiative.
It was noted that Turkmenistan hopes to strengthen partnership with UNEP on specific projects related to adaptation to climate change in the Caspian region, as well as with the development of the concept of marine spatial planning of the Turkmen part of the Caspian Sea.
The Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme highly appreciated Turkmenistan's work in the environmental field, its constructive initiatives and contribution to solving priority global tasks in this area.
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