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Evan Johnson and Garrett Mitchell are Worldwide Commerce Specialists in ITA’s Workplace of Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia
Final month, authorities, civil society and the personal sector representatives from all over the world gathered on the 2023 UN Local weather Change Convention (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to resume commitments to combatting local weather change.
In his current paper, Dr. Eric Rudenshiold, a Senior Fellow on the Caspian Coverage Heart begins with the assertion, “nowhere are the challenges highlighted within the United Nations Local weather Convention (COP28) extra impactful to tens of millions of individuals than in Central Asia.”
With one third of the area’s glaciers melted, 90 p.c of the Aral Sea’s quantity having disappeared, and with 4 of the 5 Central Asian nations going through water-related stresses, it’s clear that the realities of local weather change have drastically impacted Central Asia’s water sources.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/EzMmKfRNmXQ?function=oembed
Along with climate-induced challenges, the area’s inefficient agricultural practices are additionally contributing to dwindling water sources. Soviet-era river diversion tasks rerouted water destined for the Aral Sea to cotton, wheat, and rice farms. Years later, the European Financial institution for Reconstruction and Growth described the Aral Sea as one of many worst man-made environmental disasters in fashionable historical past. What was as soon as the world’s fourth largest lake is now over 13 million acres of desert. Scientists are involved the same destiny might befall Lake Balkhash in Kazakhstan and the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest inland physique of water.
These urgent points would require revolutionary options to reverse the degradation of regional water provides and revitalize crumbling drainage and irrigation methods. As ITA’s Below Secretary Marisa Lago has said, nations alone are usually not going to fulfill their local weather commitments with out partnership with the personal sector and tapping into their innovation and experience.
As world leaders in local weather and clear tech options, U.S. firms are nicely positioned to fulfill this want. In a brand new market intelligence temporary, ITA’s Workplace of Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia highlights present and rising alternatives for U.S. firms offering applied sciences, providers, and monetary and different varieties of administration methods—from canal lining and meters to capability constructing trainings on company governance and monetary administration—that can assist the Authorities of Uzbekistan make their water provides and administration methods extra environment friendly and resilient.
Non-profit organizations may contemplate making use of to the Worldwide Commerce Administration’s Market Growth Cooperator Program. Chosen eligible U.S. entities will obtain as much as $300,000 in matching funds to pursue a 3-5 12 months challenge designed to assist U.S. firms export.
ITA produces market intelligence briefs highlighting alternatives across the globe throughout quite a few industries. Go to our market intelligence web page to be taught extra.
