Following an almost two-year suspension, Kazakhstan’s emissions trading system (ETS) was relaunched on 1 January 2018. The new phase was launched after multiple amendments had been made to the legislation during the suspension phase to improve the functioning of Kazakhstan’s ETS. For example, on 26 December 2017, the government adopted the National Allocation Plan (Russian) for the third phase of the system (2018-2020) which includes new provisions for benchmark based allocation for certain sectors. The emissions’ cap is set at a five percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2020. This translates to an annual ETS cap during the third phase of about 162 million tons of CO2 per year. The National Allocation Plan also established an allowance reserve containing about 35.27 million allowances. The ETS now covers 225 installations (130 companies) in the energy sector (including oil and gas), mining, metallurgy, and – in addition to the previous phases – the chemical industry, and processing sectors (production of building materials: cement, lime, gypsum and brick).
