The strategic goal of Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, the President of Turkmenistan, in the field of environmental policy is to solve problems that ensure environmentally oriented economic growth, preserve natural resources, and strengthen law and order in the environmental protection.
Turkmenistan closely cooperates with international organizations. The state ratified and became a supporter of many international conventions and UN programs with various aspects of environmental protection, rational use of natural resources, and solving environmental problems.
In an interview to CentralAsia.news, Allaberdy Ilyasov, a well-known Turkmen scientist, doctor of technical sciences, expert and observer revealed the negative expectations in case of untimely concern for the environment.
Global problems
Environmental issues are one of the main tasks that humanity is trying to solve. Deforestation, ocean pollution, ozone depletion — all these problems must be fixed in order to make our planet suitable not only for us, but also for the future generations.
Progress Factors
Man has interacted with the environment and influenced it since the very beginning of his species. However, this influence reached a truly tangible scale only in the eighteenth century, with the industrial revolution.
At that moment, man left the natural circulation of wildlife and began to dictate his own rules to the planet. The planet began to change, but we noticed it not on time. Our civilization was busy with other things: the extraction of fuel (coal, gas, shale, oil), metal and other minerals. All these substances, made by nature and seized by man, returned to nature, but in a different form.
It turned into a global soil, water and air pollution and became the cause of the ecological crisis. And the intensity of this process continues to grow catastrophically fast, and the serious consequences of the ecological crisis will have to be eliminated by mankind in the near future.
Modern environmental problems make us vulnerable to disasters now and in the future. All over the world, people are facing many new and complex environmental «disruptions». Some of them are small and affect only a few ecosystems, while others dramatically change the conditions of life that we consider normal.
Categories of protection
Not all global problems of mankind can lead to such catastrophic consequences as environmental ones. The world gene pool is impoverished and destroyed, and the species diversity is being violated faster and faster.
Now about 20 million species of flora and fauna live on Earth, but they also become victims of an unfavorable environment. Over the past two centuries, our planet has lost 900 thousand species, which means that on average, about 12 species die out every day. Problems on a global scale are the result of the confrontation between nature and human culture, as well as the inconsistency or incompatibility of multidirectional trends in the course of the development of human culture itself. Nature follows the principle of negative feedback, while human culture — the principle of positive feedback.
From the beginning of the 20th century, the first programs aimed primarily at protecting and saving the environment were developed. By the end of the century it became clear that humanity needed more radical and effective measures. In recent decades, humanity has realized the danger of the current environmental situation in the world and has begun an active struggle to protect and restore our nature. Measures developed and implemented are usually divided into several categories.
First of all, legal — creation and implementation of administrative, state and international laws and legal acts on environmental protection. The economic sphere includes such concepts as minimization or complete elimination of negative technogenic impact on nature with the help of cash injections, creation of financed programs and funds.
Technological categories — the invention and implementation of new technologies that reduce the harmful impact on nature in the metallurgical, transport and mining industries. Development and promotion of environmentally friendly energy sources.
Architectural categories — design and construction of «environmentally friendly» cities, landscaping of settlements.
World community programs
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has predicted trends that will have a significant impact on human life, the global economy and the state of ecosystems in the near future. These are the development of synthetic biology, the latest methods of restoring ecological links, the melting of permafrost and the formation of peat bogs, nitrogen pollution and climate change. And this is an incomplete list of types of economic threats, but humanity is successfully solving these issues.
Global problems are interconnected, cover all aspects of people’s lives and concern all countries. They affect the interests of all peoples, the economic and social progress of mankind and the preservation of civilization as a whole depend on their solution. These problems are characterized by dynamism, arise as an objective factor in the development of society and require the combined efforts of all mankind. The United Nations makes a great contribution to solving problems of environmental protection.
One of the forms of international environmental cooperation is carrying out work on major research projects. International environmental programs and projects cover a wide range of environmental issues at the local, regional and global levels.
Most of them in practice implement the tasks formulated in the Declarations, agreements and treaties. An essential direction of international projects is environmental monitoring. And in this regard, the Montreal Protocol (1989) — the fight against ozone holes and the Kyoto Protocol (1997) — the fight against global warming — are effective international programs for the conservation of the environment.
Strategic goals of Turkmenistan
The initiatives of the President of Turkmenistan are harmoniously combined with the policy of stable development of the world community, protection of the world’s ecosystems. In the recent history of the country, a number of laws in the field of nature protection have been adopted. These are Laws «On Ecological Safety», «On Nature Protection», «On Ecological Expertise», «On Chemical Safety», «On Environmental Audit» and other regulatory documents.
The Turkmen state sees the solution of environmental issues within universally recognized norms of international law, taking into account the interests of all countries of the region and the active participation of the world community represented by the UN and other authoritative international organizations.
Hydrocarbon and protection of nature
All over the world, one of the most effective environmental hazards is the activity of the oil and gas industry. But how this threat is neutralized in Turkmenistan? The oil and gas industry is one of the key industries of the national economy.
Turkmenistan has the largest natural resources of hydrocarbons. An important role in the activities of the oil and gas complex is played by exploration and production facilities, as well as oil and gas pipelines transport systems. Oil and gas enterprises have a complex, multi-level infrastructure for the production, storage, transportation, processing and distribution of oil and gas, distributed over vast areas, often with difficult natural and climatic conditions.
The management of such an economy is impossible without constant and comprehensive monitoring of the processes and phenomena occurring on the territory, control of all types of economic activities related to subsoil use.
The Turkmen state pays great attention to the compliance of its products with the requirements of environmental safety. Protecting and improving the environment for present and future generations has become the most important goal of mankind.
When planning projects for the construction of new units at the Turkmenbashi Complex of Oil Refineries in accordance with the requirements of the legislation of Turkmenistan, specialists of foreign company Westport Trading Europe Limited, a long-term partner of Turkmenistan in the oil and gas sector, assess the potential impact of a technological facility on the environment: environmental monitoring is carried out. It includes measurements and analysis of emissions of pollutants and atmospheric air, as well as monitoring of surface, underground, groundwater and soil, control of biodiversity conservation, including the conservation of animal migration routes.
Based on the results of these studies, if necessary, measures to reduce the impact of production activities are developed and implemented. During the construction of oil and gas complex facilities, environmental priorities are taken into account.
Among them are the neutralization and disposal of hazardous waste through the creation of various kinds of environmental facilities. These are facilities for the treatment of industrial and domestic wastewater, gas and dust collection equipment, deep processing of oil and gas and chemical waste, replacement of energy and resource-intensive equipment, provision of external and internal control, development of resource-saving and low-waste production technologies.
Consistent implementation of the environmental policy of the head of the state Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, in particular, measures to modernize industrial facilities, ensures a confident, dynamic development of the national economy. The natural resources of the Earth, including air, water, soil, flora, fauna, and especially representative examples of natural ecosystems, must be conserved.