Country

Turkmenistan

Explore historical and projected climate data, climate data by sector, impacts, key vulnerabilities and what adaptation measures are being taken. Explore the overview for a general context of how climate change is affecting Turkmenistan.

Adaptation

The National Strategy of Turkmenistan on Climate Change, which mainly focuses on the adaptation component, will be implemented through the National Action Plans for Adaptation and Mitigation.The National Action Plan will include detailed adaptation actions across various sectors (water, agriculture, soil and land resources, ecosystems), timelines for their implementation and assessment of implementation costs. In particular, construction of Turkmen Lake of “Golden Century” plays a special role among other adaptation activities.

 

Adaptation Options for Key Sectors

  • Optimize spacing /allocation/distribution of agricultural production facilities.
  • Specialize agricultural production.
  • Conduct selection work to breed drought-resistant and salt-resistant crops.
  • Promote the introduction and strict observance of rotational pasture use.
  •  Form pasture protection belts consisting of fodder dendro- shrubby plants.
  • Introduce methods and practices to allow harvesting several times a year.
  • Develop National Forestry Programme of Turkmenistan, including improvement of the forestry inventory system.
  • Improve the mechanism of economic incentives.
  • Integrate biodiversity management objectives into economic sector activities to precipitate the support of natural ecosystem functions by industrial processes.
  • Enhance the economic potential of protected areas through implementing reforms in the protected areas system, expanding the total surface area of protected spaces, development of national parks and introduction of alternative sustainable financing arrangements.
  • Integrate principles that enhance ecosystems’ sustainability and rational use of land and water resources in the key sectors of the economy that cause adverse effects for the environment. These include fuel and energy complex transport, construction, etc.
  • Apply legislative, economic, institutional and technical measures for expanding the forest coverage.
  • Improve water management, introduce advanced irrigation methods, construct water-storage reservoirs and modernize hydraulic engineering structures.
  • Develop incentive tools for stimulating rational water consumption.
  • Continue construction of the Turkmen Lake.
  • Strengthen international cooperation on conservation and use of transboundary waters.
  • Provide scientific assessment of the effect of high air temperature on the health of the populations in different regions of the country.
  • Develop preventive programs to reduce the adverse effects of climate change.
  • Develop specific recommendations on various aspects of the population’s adaptation to extreme changes in weather conditions.
  • Develop a National Report to assess climate change effects on public health.
  • Adopt a law on pastures to prevent degradation of pastures – major carbon sinks.
  • Conduct detailed soil and land inventory.
  • Combat soil salinization, pasture degradation and desertification of territories.
  • Exert control over the engineering projects under construction which deplete productive soil layer.
  • Implement measures on ameliorative improvement of usable lands.
  • Enhance crop farming culture.

Gaps and Needs

  • Capacity building for expertise and network: To strengthen international cooperation on climate change there is a need to attract leading experts of different ministries and departments to solve climate change issues, participate in international discussions, conferences, seminars and meetings including conferences of parties and sessions of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It is essential to take active part in the international network activities on climate change, especially in the Asian-Pacific network on climate change.
  • To fundamentally improve activities on climate change in Turkmenistan it is necessary to strengthen the material and technical basis of hydrometeorology service, expand the observational network and types of observations.
  • With regards to the preparation of the Second National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, due to the difficulty to obtain some macroeconomy data, the baseline scenario and mitigation scenario have been constructed mainly based on assumptions and experts estimations.