In an interview with Sputnik Armenia, Gayane Gabrielyan, Deputy Minister of the Environment of the Republic of Armenia, presented the most important, urgent problems in the field of environmental protection and possible ways to solve them.
The delegation of the Ministry of Environment of Armenia, among other things, at the 27th annual conference on climate change – COP (Conference of the Parties), which will be held in Sharm El Sheikh, will discuss the repayment of public debt through the implementation of climate programs. This was announced in an interview with Sputnik Armenia by Deputy Minister of the Environment Gayane Gabrielyan.
The conference will be held from 6 to 17 November. This year, Armenia will participate with a large number of participants, including experts.
The Deputy Minister noted that Armenia has the opportunity to repay part of the public debt through the implementation of climate programs.
“That is, we have a mechanism for repaying Armenia’s public debt at the expense of climate programs, which is handled by the Ministry of Environment. It provides for compensation of Armenia’s external public debt in accordance with the volume of programs in which there are investments aimed at solving climate-related issues. Suppose Armenia has a conditional debt to the Russian Federation in the amount of 1 unit and spent 0.1 unit on the climate agenda as part of the work performed. In this case, 0.1 unit is deducted from this 1 unit,” Gabrielyan explained.
The conference also includes events on green science, biodiversity, agriculture, youth and education, as well as civil society and women.
One of the important issues on the agenda for Armenia, according to the deputy minister, is the “Low Carbon Day” event, since by joining the Paris Agreement, Armenia has pledged to eliminate carbon emissions by 2050.
It should be noted that the project to repay the state debt through the implementation of climate programs in Armenia was announced back in February 2017. The then Minister of Ecology Artsvik Minasyan said that this option was proposed to Armenia by the World Bank.
On March 30, 2022, Russia stated that it was discussing with Armenia the application of this new debt repayment mechanism. However, it has not yet been applied in practice.
As of June 30, 2022, Armenia’s public debt is 4 trillion. drams, which is 251.7 billion drams less than in the same period last year.
