Paper short abstract:

The paper aims to explore the impact of Gazprom in Central Asian energy politics by focusing on its relations with governmental and corporate actors.To this end, the paper attempts to define sources and limits of Gazprom’s political role and power at national and transnational levels.

Paper long abstract:

The presence of Russian gas giant Gazprom has more than half-a-century history in Central Asia. Inherited infrastructure from the Soviet Union and the long-term agreements, signed with regional states in the beginning of 2000s, let Gazprom to dominate the regional gas market until 2008 global financial crisis. Following this crisis, Gazprom significantly lowered volumes of gas imported from Central Asia because gas demand in Europe dramatically decreased and re-exported Central Asian gas by the company turned out to be superfluous. Gazprom’s subsidiaries in the region have still been effective in gas trade and production that is why decreasing gas purchase volumes did not mean company’s total quit from the region, but this paved the way for China to emerge as an influential importer of regional gas – particularly of Turkmen gas. In 2018, Gazprom reported record gas export to Europe, 200 bcm of gas. In summer 2019, Gazprom announced that company interested in increasing the amount of gas purchases from Central Asia to 20 bcm per year in 2019-2021. For sure, this amount is apparently less than it was before 2009 gas dispute with Turkmenistan, but this statement is meaningful as it indicates Gazprom’s revival to Central Asia as an importer. Along with relatively advantageous current economic conditions, increasing attention of USA toward the region and recently declared “United States Strategy for Central Asia 2019-2025” might encourage Russia to revise its policies toward the region and in this political context Russian companies’ interactions in the region might be strengthened.

The paper aims to explore the impact of Gazprom in Central Asian energy politics. The paper focuses on Gazprom’s relations with regional states and energy companies. The paper is structured in three sections: The first section overviews regional energy sector and the presence of foreign companies in Central Asia. The second section of the paper tries to define the sources of Gazprom’s political role and power at national and transnational levels in a relational perspective. The third section of the paper attempts to determine the extent of political power of Gazprom in the context of rivalry with other actors.

Paper long abstract:

The demand for energy supply has been increasing drammatically in recent years in our developed world. Additionally, due to the uncertain economic structure of the country, energy has a chaotic and nonlinear trend. In this paper, the usage of types of energy will be evaluated. Despite its importance in science and engineering, available definitions of energy so far only comment on its use, e.g. regarding the supply of work or heat, but don’t have a real explanation of what energy is, nor why it is conserved. This paper strugles to give brief explanation in regard with energy. To understand what energy is, the conservation of energy is of central importance. It is evident that numerous forms of energy (heat, light, motion, electrical, chemical, gravitational energy ) can be found in the globe. On the whole, it obvious that there are considerable number of ways for generating main energy for us which is electricity. Today, the main way of generating energy is by means of burning fossil fuels which causes carbon emission. For this reason, our world gets to use other ways so as to generate our main energy, electricity. Nowadays, among renewable enregy types, sun’s energy is regarded as a main way of producing electricity although hydropower, bio-oil and wind energy is also fruitful as much as sun’s energy is. Bio-oil from lignocellulose of plants has great potential to be one of the main reneweable energy source. At present, there are only a small number of commercial bio-oil plants because their operation is rather complicated and the return is not attractive. Overall, the best way for combating global warming is to use renewable energy.

Paper short abstract:

The study looks at the narratives and mechanisms of climate change communication in three Central Asian countries. Based on exhaustive analysis of the national legacies, media articles, and expert interviews, it identifies the key issues of communication between the key actors of climate action.

Paper long abstract:

The research project is designed to fill a substantial gap in academic and policy-orientated literature related to state policy and public perception of climate change-related problems in Central Asia. It looks at how climate change is perceived and communicated in three countries of the region highly vulnerable to the issue – Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is argued that understanding the mechanisms and problems of climate communication will contribute to national climate policymaking and strengthen the resilience of civil society. Comparative analysis will potentially benefit a collective response to the issue in the region where climate change effects are increasingly seen as a ground for cooperation.

Based on critical discourse analysis (Carvalho 2008) of the national legacies and media articles, and the range of expert interviews, the study identifies the key narratives and mechanisms of communication between politicians, scientists, media and NGOs. It argues that the state’s ideology matters in how the issue is approached at different levels. In Uzbekistan, the change over the president’s chair in 2016 has marked an ideological shift towards democratisation which was reflected in the growing importance of climate policy. In Kazakhstan, concerns over economic wealth and international image are sound in national responses to the issue. In Kyrgyzstan, complicated socio-economic circumstances explain the close ties with international donors.

Despite clear progress in climate policies of the given states, there are common constraints that hinder their potential. While notable grassroots initiatives and educational projects are underway, they do not receive adequate governmental support in any of the countries. Despite increased freedom of speech, media reporting and public participation in decision-making are limited. Furthermore, implementation mechanisms lack coherence at the political level. Among the issues arising from there is allocation of responsibility among the state actors, and the absence of an institutional framework for ‘green’ research being converted into practical solutions.