Economy, Energy, Emissions

In December 2020, experts from the Economic Research Institute took part in an event entitled “Modeling the effects of climate change and adaptation measures”. This is the second, five-day training for the developers of the E3.kz (Economy, Energy, Emissions) model developed with the full support of the Institute to analyze the economic consequences of climate change and adaptation measures.

Kazakhstan will become a carbon-neutral state by 2060 - President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev announced in his speech at the Summit on Climate Ambitions, timed to coincide with the 5th anniversary of the adoption of the Paris Agreement, on December 13, 2020.

This commitment is in line with many other countries' declarations of achieving carbon neutrality in connection with the understanding of the need to reduce the impact of humankind on the pace of climate change. It should be noted that in addition to humankind influence on the climate, recently it has been more and more noticeable reverse influence of climate change on human activities and life at the global and local level .

The climate system is a very complex system and changing its conditions leads to significant risks for such important sectors for the life of the state and society as agriculture, health care, transport infrastructure and many others.

These changes are occurring globally and everywhere and in this connection, development of reliable methods for assessing climate risks becomes more and more urgent.

Understanding climate risks and their impact on economic development will allow adopting climate-resistant long-term development strategies and developing consistent adaptation plans.

The Global Program “Policy Recommendations for Climate Resilient Economic Development” (CRED), implemented by the German Society for International Cooperation GIZ and the international consultant GWS (Gesellschaftfür Wirtschaftliche Strukturforschung - Institute for Structural Economic Research), together with its partners in Kazakhstan, Georgia and Vietnam, has launched to macroeconomic models development that model the economic impact of climate change and the effectiveness of adaptation measures.

As part of this program, in March 2020, a group of model developers (7-10 people) was created: experts from ERI, Zhasyl-Damu, Nazarbayev University and the Talap Center for Social Development. In July 2020, the first (10-day) training was held for developers on building an E3.kz (Economy, Energy, Emissions) model for Kazakhstan, which shows the economic damage caused by climate change (for example, droughts and floods) at the national level, and the economic benefits of adaptation measures.

It should be noted that during the second, December training, the participants extensed previously obtained knowledge about the e3.kz model, studied its mechanisms of functioning, as well as the peculiarities of interpreting the results of various climate change scenarios, and implementing adaptation measures.

The impact of climate risks such as drought, heat waves, changes in precipitation patterns and many others were discussed. The experts shared their experiences and further steps to deepen and expand the coverage of climate risks for Kazakhstan. All recommendations and comments were taken into account, and in the near future the model will be expanded taking into account all the developments obtained during this training.

The E3.kz model will be owned by Economic Research Institute JSC (ERI).