Astana Hosts Seventh Environment for Europe Ministerial Conference

    “The Green Bridge initiative of Astana will strengthen partnership between Europe and Asia in the promotion of green economic policies,” Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Omirzak Shokeyev stated, quoting President Nursultan Nazarbayev at his welcoming speech during the Seventh “Environment for Europe” Ministerial Conference held in Astana from September 21 through 23.
    “We have launched the Green Bridge initiative of Astana, viewing it as a further development of the Seoul Green Growth Initiative. At the conference today, we suggest considering the Green Bridge partnership program, which in the future, will be one of the main regional mechanisms in the transition to a green economy,” President Nazarbayev’s message read.
    “We believe our initiative will strengthen the partnership between Europe, Asia and the Pacific, will bring positive results, as well as additional benefits to the existing regional programs. The exchange of experiences, creation of mechanisms to transfer to clean technologies, joint investments and demonstration projects aimed at transitioning to the green economy and maintaining the ecosystem. And this is far from the complete list of possibilities of such a cooperation,” the president said.
    “I am convinced that the conference will contribute to the objectives of sustainable development and preservation of our planet,” President Nazarbayev concluded.
    The initiative was the first time proposed by Kazakhstan at the Sixth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Development in Asia-Pacific region in September 2010. Then, the initiative was announced at the 19^th session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in New York on 12 May 2011.
    It is planned that Kazakh will present the Green Bridge initiative and the partnership program for its implementation at the Millennium Summit in Rio de Janeiro in May 2012 as an inter-regional contribution to the sustainable development.
    The concept of the program represents Kazakhstan’s transition to low carbon development until 2050.
    The main objective of the concept is to reduce national greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with Kazakh international commitments, and without compromizing the energy security of the country, not holding back the development and growth of the living standards of the population, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote.