Authors

Morena Skalamera¹;  ¹ Leiden University, Netherlands

Discussion

Central Asia is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. There is, however, a lack of research on how local business and political elites, and the general public perceive climate change, its impacts, and risks. This article focuses on the distributional effects of the EU’s climate policy on the societies of Central Asia and aims to answer the following research question: What are the effects of the EU’s climate policy on both vertical equity (across income groups in Central Asia) and horizontal equity (within the EU’s business and policy partners in Central Asia), and how do such effects influence local societal support for the energy transition?
One of the unintended effects of the EU’s Green Deal on the countries of the region is that China has emerged as a counterweight to the EU’s ‘ too extreme’ climate agenda. The project relies on documentary analysis (including policy, business and media sources) and in-depth interviews with local stakeholders to examine the links between (i) the effects of the different policies of the European Green Deal, and the CBAM in particular, on national and cross-border environmental policies of countries in Central Asia and (ii) China’s goal of becoming a global leader in the energy transition partly through solutions for Central Asia’s green development, including regional cooperation initiatives, financing, clean technologies and equipment, and support for traditional energy security and a ’just energy transition.’