Kazakhstan

Historical data are based on the most recent national inventory submissions reported in AR4 GWPs (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2023b). The historical emissions time series published in 2023 differs to an extent from the previous historical emissions time series. The main differences are in the agriculture and LULUCF sectors, with total emissions increasing by a range of 15 to 55 MtCO₂e between 1994 and 2004 and by 16 and 63 MtCO₂e between 2003 and 2013, respectively.

The NDC was quantified based on the latest national inventory submission and information provided in the Fifth Biennial Report (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2023a). Kazakhstan’s unconditional NDC is an emissions reduction target of 15% by 2030 and its conditional NDC is an emissions reduction target of 25% by 2030 (both compared to 1990 emission levels). Since the targets include LULUCF, they were converted to values excluding LULUCF using projections for LULUCF emissions “with current measures” from BR5. As the historical emissions used in the CAT’s previous assessment slightly differ from this year’s historical emissions (see historical emissions section), there is a difference in the calculated targeted emission levels from the NDC between the two analyses. Based on calculations from the CAT’s previous assessment, the unconditional NDC equalled an emissions level of 331 MtCO_²e in 2030 (excluding LULUCF). Based on the updated historical emissions data, the unconditional NDC (a reduction of 15% compared to 1990 emission levels) equals an emissions level of 318 MtCO₂e in 2030. The conditional NDC (a 25% reduction compared to 1990 levels) equals an emissions level of 280 MtCO₂e in 2030 (excluding LULUCF).

Current policy projections stem from the “with measures” scenario from the Fifth Biennial Report. We harmonise this scenario to historical emissions reported in the latest country inventory using growth rates.

The “with measures” scenario includes measures and policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that have been taken or are planned to be adopted in the near future. The majority of these measures possess sufficient certainty to be treated as a current policy scenario in our analysis. These include measures to develop the alternative and renewable energy sector in Kazakhstan (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2023a).

The Biennial Report’s “with measures” scenario included a target to achieve a 10% share of renewables, in this case wind and solar power, in the country’s energy grid by 2030. However, following the achievement of the 2020 target of 3%, the government announced that they are raising the ambition of the renewables target to a 15% share by 2030 (Satubaldina, 2021). We used electrical power demand and supply projections from Kazakhstan’s Green Economy plan to estimate the emissions reduction potential of this 5% increase (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2015). We first used future coal demand (in TWh) and projected emissions from coal in 2030 under the BAU scenario to develop a coal emissions factor. Since we assume that an increase in renewables will result in a decrease in coal use, we used the difference between coal demand under 10% renewables and coal demand under 15% renewables and the coal emissions factor to determine the emissions reductions potential. This resulted in a reduction of 4 MtCO₂e, which was subtracted from total emissions under the BR “with measures” scenario to get the new current policy projection.

The net zero by 2060 target covers all economic sectors and all GHG emissions. Kazakhstan plans to reduce emissions from 351.2 CO₂-eq (2020) to 45.2 CO₂-eq by 2060 and sets a removal goal of -45.2 CO₂-eq for GHG absorption in the LULUCF sector. The Strategy for achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 contains decadal targets between 2020 and 2060, which are used in the tool.

The CAT uses Global Warming Potential (GWP) values from the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) for all its figures and time series. Assessments completed prior to December 2018 (COP24) used GWP values from the Second Assessment Report (SAR).