Tajikistan is battling the impact of Climate change more than most

It is not often that people think of Tajikistan when it comes to Climate Change. But since we are one of the most vulnerable countries in the world facing the impacts of Climate Change, Climate Tracker Komron Asozoda wanted to share a few things you might not know about this Central Asian nation.

Let me start by saying this, Tajikistan is the most vulnerable country in the Central Asia region when it comes to climate change. Glaciers are the main source not only of clean drinking water in the region, but the most important resources for hydropower stations as well. And they are disappearing.

The biggest glacier in Central Asia and Tajikistan is called Fedchenko. That’s where most of the nation’s water comes from. According to the Hydrometcenter of Tajikistan, the length of the glacier is 70 km, with a width of 2 km. It is the biggest of at least 8,000 glaciers that cover about 6% of Tajikistan.

They then feed into the country’s 947 rivers, with a total length of 28,500 km.

Over past 70 years, Tajikistan has lost over 30% of its glaciers. In the past 50 years in the Murghab district, the have glaciers melted by 40%.

In the next 30-40 years, the glaciers will decline at an even more rapid rate than in the past 60-70 years.

Glaciers are the main source of clean water in the Central Asia region. Unfortunately, the irresponsible use of water resources in the agriculture sector of Uzbekistan, the second largest exporter of cotton in the world, as well as the disappearance of the Aral Sea have added even greater water stresses to an already fragile ecosystem.

During the time of the Soviet Union, the deteriorating state of the Aral Sea was hidden for decades. This was until 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev made this ecological disaster public.

The water level had fallen so much that the whole sea was divided into two parts: northern Small Aral and the southern Big Aral. By 2007, the volume of the Big Aral Sea dropped by almost 90 per cent, and the salinity of the water has increased by almost 600 per cent.

There is also a theory that in 1948 at Middle Island in the Aral Sea, the Soviet Union constructed a facility for biological weapons that was used to test dangerous samples such as smallpox, anthrax, tularemia and others. Should this be true, further drops in the water level could be catastrophic.

According to a member of the Committee on Environmental Protection Agency, Anvar Khamidov, “The regions of Darwaz, Muminobod, Hamadoni, Jirgital and Panjakent are the most dangerous and vulnerable, as they are influenced by climate change. More than 300 thousand people live in these areas”.

Emissions

As was reported in the National Adaptation Plan of Tajikistan, in 1991 the annual CO2 emissions reached 22.6 million tons, but after the civil war emission levels decreased 10-fold. Currently, Tajikistan has 40 coal fields and 18 oil fields. The annual coal production is 15-20,000 tons per year. The total coal reserves are currently 4.5 billion tons.

At the same time, we cannot forget about countries that are in the region with Tajikistan; emissions from China and India negatively effect Tajik glaciers.

According to unofficial sources, emissions from vehicles in Tajikistan reach 160,000 tons CO2 in summer period. We can observe an abundance of smog above Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.

Clean Energy

As already mentioned above, Tajikistan is the richest country in terms of water resources; 81 billion cubic meters of water pass through the major rivers of Tajikistan annually, enriching the rivers flowing through Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and other countries of the region. Approximately 96% of the electricity produced in the country is from hydropower plants. The water potential of the country allows it to provide the region with electricity from the hydropower plants without CO2 emission, at a cheaper rate than alternative energy sources.

As reported by the Hydrometcenter of Tajikistan and the Committee on Environmental Protection, several large hydropower stations are producing energy at a total capacity of 4,986 megawatts in Tajikistan.

“The total potential reserves of hydropower plants are 527 billion kWh per year (8th in the world), or 4% of the world’s hydropower potential. The average annual generation of electricity from hydropower plants is 16.5 billion kWh (4.5% of the potential reserves). Also, there’re 280-330 sunny days a year. This means that Tajikistan has great potential for clean energy in the region,” the Hydrometcenter says.

Tajikistan has great potential prospects for developing clean energy, and a chance to cut 30-50% greenhouse gas from 1990 levels by 2030. Moreover, Tajikistan can play a key role in the region on climate change issues and could be a good example for other Central Asia countries.

However, Tajikistan has still not submitted its Climate action plan (or INDC). This leaves the country and the region vulnerable. Climate activists hope that Tajikistan will have a plan that highlights not only its opportunities to adapt to Climate Change, but also strong measures to decrease its greenhouse gas emissions and become a Climate leader within the region.

This article was originally published in Akipress.