OSCE supports online training seminar on filling out and using Pollutant Release Transfer Register in Kazakhstan

An OSCE-supported online training seminar on the filling out and use of the Protocol on the Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR) for some 45 private and civil sector representatives in the Karaganda region took place on 18 August 2020.

The event is the first in a series of four seminars organized by the OSCE Programme Office in Nur-Sultan in partnership with the Karaganda Regional Ecological Museum Public Fund (Ecomuzey). Three more events will be conducted by the end of this year.The event focused on existing national legislation, obligations under the PRTR Protocol and the practical aspects of launching pollutants monitoring system in Kazakhstan.

Speakers from Ecomuzey and Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Ecology, Geology and Natural Resources familiarized business sector representatives with the procedural aspects of submitting emissions data to the government’s authorized body. Participants also learned about the methodology for calculating pollutants and entering it into the government-developed online reporting portal.

The PRTR Protocol to the Aarhus Convention was adopted in 2003 in Kyiv and is a legally binding instrument that requires parties to establish publicly accessible registers containing information on the release and transfer of pollutants. In 2019, Kazakhstan acceded to the UNECE Protocol on PRTR to the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention), becoming the thirty-seventh Party to the Protocol. Kazakhstan is the first country in Central Asia to accede to the Protocol.

The training seminar is part of the Programme Office’s long-standing efforts to promote international standards of the Aarhus Convention in Kazakhstan.