Eurasian River Basin Portal

05.11.2016

October 18-21, 2016, Baku (Azerbaijan) the Seventh International Forum on Energy for Sustainable Development took place. It combined  plenary sessions, parallel workshops and site visits over four days. The Forum assembled up to 300 international energy experts, government officials, and representatives from the business community, financial sector, academia and civil society.

Following the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015, the United Nations and other international actors, countries and the private sector are exploring how they can implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other aspirational pledges such as the Paris Agreement on climate change. The sustainable development agenda requires countries to pursue concerted action on energy in their national programmes in both their own national contexts and others.

The Seventh International Forum on Energy for Sustainable Development provided the opportunity to reflect on the challenges ahead and to agree on concrete measures. The participants discussed national commitments, such as the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions in support of achieving the climate change mitigation and adaptation goals outlined in the Paris Agreement, shared perspectives on how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other aspirational pledges can be implemented.

Within the framework of the event, October 20-21, UNECE and ESCAP organized the 20th session of the United Nations Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia (SPECA) Thematic Working Group on Water, Energy and Environment. Items on the agenda included implementation of SDGs related to water-energy-environment on the national and sub-regional levels, work of the Thematic Working Group, including on-going processes on the water-energy-environment nexus. During these meetings, Dr. Iskandar Abdullaev spoke to the participants about the role of regional organizations in implementation of SDGs in Central Asia from CAREC’s perspective. Dr. Abdullaev also shared CAREC’s plans on SDGs work as piloting and replication of the Regional Training Module on SDGs for mid-level policy makers, support for separate SDGs in promotion, nationalization, development of integrated set of indicators, reporting and verification (MRV).

CAREC fosters collaboration among all stakeholders on environment and sustainable development and promotes the interests of Central Asia within international processes and, vice versa, facilitates the promotion of global processes in the region as was observed during this forum.

The potential solutions to be agreed at an Energy Ministerial at the outset of the Eighth International Forum on Energy for Sustainable Development in Astana, Kazakhstan, on 11 June 2017, as a major stepping stone in the history of this international fora process, was also discussed in the framework of the Forum.

For reference:

The Seventh International Forum on Energy for Sustainable Development was jointly organized by the Government of Azerbaijan, the United Nations Regional Commissions, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the Copenhagen Centre on Energy Efficiency (C2E2), and the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21).