KZBlog

Over the past month or so, there’s been a fair amount of good news regarding enviornmental projects in Kazakhstan. The government introduced an Ecological Code recently, to codify and integrate laws regarding environmental protection and bring them up to world standard. However, in Kazakhstan as in many other countries, there is pressure to ensure that environmental laws do not interfere with economic growth. One version of the Code reportedly included predicitons of 14% GDP growth rate! Not clear that that is possible or that GDP growth is the jurisditiction of the Ministry of the Environment, but they may just be doing what they think they need to do to survive without being seen as obstructionist or useless.

In other news, about a month ago the Government announced a joint project with the World Bank to preserve forests borrowing 63.8 million dollars from the WB. The Global Environment Fund is also giving $5 million. There is a wonderful note in this article from the Minister of Finance:

Kazakhstan borrows this money not because the country does not have money. This is a step toward a more systematic solution of environmental problems. Because such international organizations bring along technology spillover and contribute to our human capital.

Oh proud Kazakhstan, when will you learn?

According to the World Bank project review, the project will focus on rehabilitating and preserving forestry, particularly the Irtysh pine forest, the Aral Sea dry sea bed, and saxual rangleands, and cover not only planting, fire-prevention, development of nurseries, but also introducing new budget mechanisms, policies, monitoring mechanisms, staff training, and “a competitive grant fund for innovative forest development subprojects.” One other advantage of bringing in the World Bank is this holistic approach, but we shall see if Kazakhstan is open to outsiders providing advice on how to do the budget and new policy. They may just want their technical know-how on planting some seeds.

Additionally, on the 28th of November, the five Central Asia states agreed on a 1.6 billion dollar Central Asian Countries Initiative for Land Management to reduce and reverse land degradation of over-used land resources. It will look at the Aral Sea bed and other areas affected by the Virgin Lands scheme of the Soviet Union and farm- and grazing lands that have been overused or used in ecologically unsustainable ways. The program is being coordinated by the Asian Development Bank and look at irrigation systems, preservation of biodiversity, as well as future land use, and is funded for 10 years. While some analysts are pessimisstic about coordinated programs and projects between the five Central Asian States, having an outside manager may well lead to success.

Finally, there was an interesting article in gazeta.kz on Gas-burning and ecological fines. Kazakhstan has ecological fines for companies which pollute, much like in the US and other countries. Different types of pollution are classified, company output is measured and fines are levied appropriately–and collected by the oblast authorities. As in other countries, companies try to fight the fines even as they understand that pollution is waste; As the gazeta article puts it:

Even today, when it is time to pay the bills, certain CEOs of oil & gas companies show indignation about this “insolence” of the environmentalists, at the same time looking somewhat distastefully at their “production costs” – such as oil spills, discharges into the atmosphere, pollution of the ground and waters by toxic waste.

And one can’t stop wondering at it: the more they pollute, the more they are active in disproving the novelty. And they write, and they write to all familiar authorities: what if somebody will defend them…

However, burning of flared gas–part of the oil refining process is burning excess gas–is not covered in the current environmental laws, despite the real dangers it produces. One cubic meter of flared gas produces one cubic meter of carbonic acid, a global warming gas, and also destroys one and a half cubic meters of oxygen. As gazeta.kz points out, Mangiastau and for that matter the whole of the oil-rich West of Kazakhstan, is desert and prarie land, poor in vegetation that can replace that oxygen.

If we take $70 per cubic meter as the world standard, gazeta.kz estimates that Kazakhstan would gain 4 and a half billion tenge in 2005. Or encourage the companies to not burn, but sell the gas. Finally the gazeta.kz article ends with a discussion of the inadequacy of the fees versus the environmental damage, and explains that too much of the collected fines go to the Republican budget instead of staying in the oblast where the fines can be put to good use preserving the environment:

And the fees have grown enough for trying to resolve urgent environmental problems of the region. Thus, in 2005 the total environmental payments amounted to 752 million KZT, of which 192 million KZT are above the norm.

As long as a part of the collected funds is transferred to the national budget, only 560 million KZT remain in the region for resolving the environmental problems, while a triple amount – around 1.5 billion – is actually needed.

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Now we needn’t take the implication that transferral to the Republican budget doesn’t inherently means it doesn’t go to environmental preservation, since the Republican budget is funding the new forestry preservation project and land erosion reversal program. The transfers may prevent the fees from going directly to the region being polluted. There is reason to think that if pollution occurs in Mangistau, the collected fees should be used in Mangistau. If pollution comes from chemicals associated with gold mining, the collected fees should go to fighting chemicals associated with gold mining. Further, there is or was a proposal for the Ministry of the Environment to collect all environmental fees and distribute them to the Social Business Corporations. There are costs involved in transferal and management of money, and distribution from the oblasts to the central government back to the oblasts will incur unnecessary leaks. And since the responsibilities of the SBC’s will include a whole range of social costs this could distribute the pollution costs outside of environmental preservation entirely. Or with careful calculation, it might create a holistic scheme of distributing funds to health care and welfare, areas that are after all affected by pollution. Likely, the scheme is being promoted by the Ministry of the Environment to increase their own importance and role in a cool new program, and counteract their reputation as obstructionists.