The Importance of the Climate Agenda in Key Eurasian Economies
A joint climate agenda should be one of the unifying projects in such a diverse region as Eurasia. Today, economic cooperation needs to be developed as part of the climate agenda, partly in an effort to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including the necessary approaches and mechanisms based on the principles of the EAEU functioning as a single market. Realizing the unique potential of Greater Eurasia to achieve climate goals will require rapid solutions to a number of practical issues: reaching a political consensus on key areas of cooperation; preventing negative socioeconomic effects, such as the widening gap between developed and developing nations and the emergence of barriers to trade and investment; finding a balance in public-private partnerships in green financing to stimulate technological transformation, including through extrabudgetary funds; creating a foundation for the free movement of carbon units within the EAEU and further integration with major trading partners; and facilitating the availability of technologies that help reduce emissions and ensure low-carbon development as well as the efficient and sustainable use of fossil-based resources. Given the current geopolitical situation, is the climate agenda a focus in economic collaboration? How do such issues as accelerated import substitution correlate with the objectives of low-carbon development? How can funding be secured for the transition in technologies? Are the funding sources clear, and how can we bridge the gap with the actual scale of the investment that is needed? How can we transform low-carbon technologies from a zone of competition into a zone of cooperation? Is an international climate technology bank a real possibility?
