JUNE 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — As a statement of intent it was emphatic. Kazakhstan’s environmental protection minister Nurlan Kapparov told a news briefing in Astana on June 5 that the state would invest $3.2b a year until 2050 on developing alternative sources of power to reduce its reliance on coal.

Mr Kapparov said that this was the equivalent of 1% of Kazakhstan’s annual total GDP.

This scale of commitment is genuinely large and will put Kazakhstan in the top league of countries committed to reducing their reliance on coal-fired power stations.

Currently, coal-fired power stations generate about 80% of Kazakhstan’s power needs.

The initiative to push for green alternative power sources is an indicator of a developed economy, just the sort of image that Kazakhstan wants to project. It is also part of Kazakhstan’s wider policies for both power production and for winning EXPO-2017. One of the themes of EXPO-2017 is green energy.

Kazakhstan has already made headway in developing alternative energy. This year it has announced initiatives to boost wind, hydro-electric, solar and nuclear power.

Mr Kapparov said that he wanted to see green energy make up half of Kazakhstan’s total production by 2050.

ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 138, published on June 10 2013)