Fossil fuels remain a key resource for Central Asia. The region must avoid costly environmental mistakes
Fossil fuels remain a key resource for Central Asia.Wood and coal have always been used as heating sources…
Worldwide, winter cold kills more people than summer heat, and Central Asia’s winters are anything but mild.
Temperatures can plummet to -40°C, turning bustling metropolises into ice-covered landscapes and testing the limits of human survival.
While the region is rich in history and geographically diverse, it is also notorious for the intense cold that tests the endurance of its inhabitants.
Battling the winter cold is especially difficult in rural areas, where shelter and other infrastructure are often rudimentary.
Wood and coal have always been used as heating sources.
For example, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan – three Central Asian countries that receive little media attention – rely heavily on abundant coal reserves for heating and electricity.
All of these countries have unstable power systems, and their largest cities experience constant blackouts during the winter.
Yet this cheap source of energy, along with natural gas and oil, is under attack by international political institutions such as the European Union and the United Nations, as well as by “green” politicians and funding agencies.
Citing climate change pseudoscience, these profiteers are trying to ban fuels that are the lifeline for the people of Central Asia.
Currently, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan generate more than 95 percent of their electricity from gas, oil and coal.
Uzbekistan plans to increase coal production by 22 percent and is conducting geological research on 31,000 km² of new areas.
Meanwhile, Kazakhstan is increasing oil production and plans to increase exports to Eastern Europe.
Kyrgyzstan has a poverty rate of more than 33 percent, making it significantly poorer than Uzbekistan (17 percent poverty) to the west and Kazakhstan (5 percent) to the north.
Half of Kyrgyzstan’s population relies on traditional coal stoves for cooking, and nearly all use solid fuels such as wood, coal, and rubber for winter heating.
The price of raw coal has risen so much that nonprofit organizations currently distribute coal free of charge to Kyrgyz households for heating.
In 2021, people queued for hours in the freezing cold to receive coal offered by the government.
A Kyrgyz housewife explained :
“In a particularly cold winter, we burn about 5-6 tons of coal. It is expensive for us to buy coal at 5,500 soms (about $62 per ton).
So I stand in line for three or four hours. And what should we do, freeze ?”
More than 90 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s electricity comes from hydroelectric plants, which allow the country to export power during periods of surplus.
While hydropower is considered a valuable resource, such high dependence increases the risk of power shortages during winter, one of the driest seasons in this relatively arid country.
As a result, Kyrgyzstan now supplements its winter power supply with electricity imported from Tajikistan and recently signed contracts to import 2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
However, these supplies are still insufficient.
Commenting on the frequent blackouts in recent years, Kyrgyz Energy Minister Taalaibek Ibrayev said :
“Electricity consumption grew exponentially, and daily usage increased by 20.5 million kilowatt-hours. We were prepared for everything except emergency power outages.
We had not anticipated such unusually cold weather”.
Kyrgyzstan’s coal reserves are the most obvious solution to meeting its energy needs.
Unfazed by the political debate over climate change, Kyrgyzstan is embarking on an ambitious program to increase coal production through advanced technology and mine privatization.
Mining has increased by about 30 percent over the past 15 years.
Most of the coal mined is lignite, a lower quality fuel that is increasingly exported.
Demand for higher quality coal is largely met by imports.
To strengthen electricity imports and exports, the country is investing in the 500-kilovolt Datka-Khodjent-Sangtuda electricity transmission line connecting Kyrgyzstan to Tajikistan.
It also has a long-term partnership with Gazprom to improve the country’s gas supply.
In addition to enduring the rigors of winter, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan have economic development and overall security interests that make the exploitation of natural resources such as fossil fuels even more important.
Despite the urgent need to develop hydrocarbon resources, restrictive climate policies are moving in the opposite direction.
Conditioned by the politics of a global green agenda, Uzbek policymakers are targeting 27 GW of renewable energy by 2030 and proposing that the country obtain 40 percent of its electricity from non-fossil sources.
But in doing so, they are diverting attention from the cost and unreliability of wind and solar sources to the more immediate problems of an aging electricity infrastructure.
“In Kyrgyzstan, the electricity system has reached a 50 percent deterioration level and now causes up to 80 percent of emergency blackouts.
Without addressing the problems of aging power transmission infrastructure, the contribution of sustainable energy transition initiatives to preventing future energy crises will remain limited.”
There is no room for climate policy in Central Asia’s frozen expanses, and the region must avoid costly environmental mistakes.
