News & Key Milestones

At the invitation of the Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Yerlan Nyssanbayev, the EurasianCarbon project team, bringing together the BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and the TALAP Center for Applied Research, participated in the Regional Ecological Summit 2026 in Astana. The Summit, “A Shared Vision for a Resilient Future,” initiated by Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and supported by the United Nations, brought together governments, international organizations, and the scientific community to advance coordinated responses to shared environmental risks. EurasianCarbon partners contributed by bringing forward approaches that link science, policy, and markets.

In the session “Integrated Action on Climate Change, Land Restoration and Biodiversity Conservation for Food Security and Sustainability,” Alexey Ivanov, Director of the BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre, emphasized that environmental strategies will not scale without functioning market mechanisms. He highlighted that global food systems are structurally linked to international markets and pointed to carbon farming as a practical entry point to connect land restoration with investment incentives and value chains. This highlights the need to embed ecological transformation within economic systems to achieve scale.

IIASA, represented at RES by Director General Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, contributed to discussions on urbanisation and water governance. He stressed that water must be understood as a cross-cutting system linking climate, ecosystems, and societies. He pointed to the broader role of land systems, noting that more sustainable land management will help address multiple challenges simultaneously, including climate, ecosystem stability, and long-term resilience.

The EurasianCarbon team also participated in the session “Climate-adaptive land use practices”. The discussion focused on practical approaches to adapting land management systems to climate change, including sustainable soil practices, resilience-building measures, and the integration of climate considerations into land governance frameworks. EurasianCarbon’s participation contributed to advancing dialogue on how carbon farming and climate-adaptive practices can be aligned to support both environmental restoration and economic viability.

A key takeaway was that advancing sustainable land use and restoration requires more than technical solutions. In this context, the EurasianCarbon team supports ongoing work in Central Asia, and its engagement at RES 2026 feeds directly into preparations for UNCCD COP17.