Serik Zhumangarin: Kazakhstan companies not limited in offsets for climate projects

International Investors' Week IFCA 2022 started on October 3 with the theme of development of carbon farming.

As Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Trade and Integration Serik Zhumangarin noted, speaking at the platform of the international conference "Fighting climate change in Eurasia: carbon exchanges and prospects of carbon farming", today farmers actually become producers of another type of products: carbon units for agricultural climate projects.

"Major agro-companies are forming their programs of carbon farming, which involve paying remuneration to farmers for the transition to carbon practices. International corporations actively announce their plans to achieve carbon neutrality and indicate in their reports the volume of purchased carbon units, so called offsets. The largest buyers of offsets are digital giants (Google, Microsoft), airlines (Delta), investment banks (JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs). One of the factors in the effective operation of the market mechanism is the possibility of offsetting offsets by quota subjects, i.e. companies whose emissions are limited by law. In this sense, Kazakhstan has already gone by the most inclusive model of organization of the carbon units market: Kazakhstani companies have the opportunity to count offsets purchased in the market for climate projects implemented in Kazakhstan without restrictions," Serik Zhumangarin said.

As noted by the Deputy Prime Minister, a number of other countries have limited offsetting limits for offsets: for example, regulated organizations in China can offset with offsets no more than 5% of the excess of the established emission quota.

"However, discussions are already underway in both China and the European Union about more active development of the carbon offset market - we hope that Kazakhstan's experience will be taken into account by our partners," he stressed.  

Thus, Kazakhstan has already made a big step towards stimulating the production of carbon units and the formation of the carbon offset market. 

For reference: From October 3 till October 7, 2022 International Financial Center Astana (IFCA) with support of the Government of Kazakhstan will hold the next International Week of Investors in a hybrid format. Co-organizers and participants are the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IISASA), BRICS International Center for Competition Law and Policy, TALAP Center for Applied Research, National ESG Club, GFC.

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