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Climate-proofing cooperation in the Chu and Talas river basins

Climate-proofing cooperation in the Chu and Talas river basins

Support for integrating the climate dimension into the management of the Chu and Talas River Basins as part of the Enhancing Climate Resilience and Adaptive Capacity in the Transboundary Chu-Talas Basin project, funded by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs under the FinWaterWei II Initiative

The Chu and Talas river basins, shared by Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic in Central Asia, are among the few basins in Central Asia with a river basin organization, the Chu-Talas Water Commission. This Commission began to address emerging challenges such as climate change and, to this end, in 2016 created the dedicated Working Group on Adaptation to Climate Change and Long-term Programmes.

Transboundary cooperation has been supported by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and other partners since the early 2000s. The basins are also part of the Global Network of Basins Working on Climate Change under the UNECE Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention) and are among its pilot basins on climate change.

The process of adapting the Chu and Talas basins to climate change began in 2010 with the elaboration of joint climate scenarios and the modelling of possible changes in water resources. This was followed by a joint vulnerability assessment for selected areas and sectors, and the development of a package of possible adaptation measures and relevant procedures for implementation through the Chu-Talas Water Commission.

Between 2015 and 2018 adaptation was further supported with the Enhancing Climate Resilience and Adaptive Capacity in the Transboundary Chu-Talas Basin project, funded by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs under the FinWaterWei II Initiative. Finland also contributed heavily to the international project Enabling Transboundary Cooperation and Integrated Water Resources Management in the Chu and Talas River Basins, financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and implemented between 2015 and 2018 by the United Nations Development Programme and UNECE. This latter project aimed to assess common management challenges in these shared basins and to establish cooperative solutions for them.

By way of an integrated consultative process, the Finnish project enabled a climate-change perspective in the design and activities of the GEF project as a cross-cutting issue. The review of climate impacts was elaborated as a thematic annex to the GEF Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis, which also included suggestions for adaptation measures, many of which found their way into the Strategic Action Programme resulting from the project. It has also provided the Commission and other stakeholders with cutting-edge knowledge about climate scenarios, water and health in the context of climate change, adaptation and its financing, as well as modern tools for managing river basins and water scarcity at the national, transboundary and global levels

to read the full document please click on 

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