UNDP and EU Support Kazakhstan’s Climate Budget Strategy to Achieve SDGs in Central Asia

Key Impact Points:

• Disparity in Climate Funding: Kazakhstan’s mitigation efforts receive significantly more funding than adaptation projects.
• Budget Allocation: From 2019 to 2021, Kazakhstan’s climate budget increased to 2,396 billion tenge, with 77% allocated to SDG 9.
• Future Focus: Emphasis on creating a strict climate budget to ensure effective and targeted climate action.

Kazakhstan’s climate finance strategy reveals a stark funding disparity between mitigation and adaptation efforts. Mitigation projects, especially in energy and transportation, receive over 17 times more funding than adaptation initiatives. This trend highlights the need for a more balanced approach to climate finance.

Key Statistics

From 2019 to 2021, Kazakhstan’s total climate budget grew by 1.25 times, reaching 2,396 billion tenge, which is 12.1 percent of the state budget. The majority of this funding, 77 percent, supported SDG 9, which focuses on industrialization, innovation, and infrastructure. Other SDGs, including those related to decent work, clean energy, and responsible consumption, received minimal funding.

Strategic Allocation

Kazakhstan’s climate finance is categorized into two budgets:

• General Climate Budget: Covers broad environmental and climate-related programmes.
• Strict Climate Budget: Focuses on direct responses to climate change.

Environmental Challenges

Kazakhstan faces severe environmental issues, including desertification affecting 70 percent of its territory. These challenges underscore the urgent need for effective climate financing strategies.

SDG Integration

The general climate budget addresses multiple SDGs, such as:

• SDG 2: Food security and sustainable agriculture.
• SDG 6: Water and sanitation management.
• SDG 7: Access to sustainable energy.
• SDG 8: Sustainable economic growth and decent work.
• SDG 9: Resilient infrastructure and innovation.
• SDG 11: Sustainable cities.
• SDG 12: Responsible consumption and production.
• SDG 13: Climate action.
• SDG 15: Ecosystem and biodiversity protection.

Research and Funding:

This research is part of the UNDP programme, funded by the European Union (EU), which is establishing a regional Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Platform for Central Asia. Serving as a knowledge-sharing hub, it monitors sustainable development progress in the region and accelerates such progress by spotlighting areas needing greater attention.

Future Focus:

To meet its Paris Climate Agreement commitments, Kazakhstan must assess budget expenditures to identify sectors with positive and negative environmental impacts. Developing a strict climate budget focusing on direct climate action expenditures will ensure a more effective and targeted approach to addressing climate change.

Aligning climate finance with the SDGs will enable Kazakhstan to tackle its environmental challenges and foster a more resilient and sustainable future.

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