A Region on the Front Lines of the Planetary Crisis

The world is facing a triple planetary crisis — the simultaneous, mutually reinforcing destabilization of the climate, biodiversity, and clean environment systems that sustain human civilization. Nowhere is this crisis felt more acutely than in the arid regions of the world, including Central Asia.

Central Asia is warming at a rate significantly faster than the global average, with mean annual temperatures already having surpassed the 1.5°C threshold above pre-industrial levels in many sub-regions. Glaciers that feed the Amu Darya and Syr Darya — the lifelines of the region — are retreating. Water deficits are looming. Land degradation is accelerating. The World Bank estimates that climate-related economic losses in Central Asia could reach between 1.3% and 6.7% of GDP annually by mid-century if current trends continue, with the most vulnerable populations in agriculture and rural communities bearing the heaviest burden.

Nowhere is this more viscerally evident than in the fate of the Aral Sea. Once the world’s fourth-largest lake , it has lost over 90% of its surface area due to decades of unsustainable irrigation policies — a man-made crisis that has devastated agricultural livelihoods across countries of the region, triggered persistent dust storms laced with salt and pesticides, and erased entire fishing communities. The Aral Sea crisis is not just a historical lesson; it is a continuing warning of what happens when nature is not accounted for in economic development.

These are not abstract threats. Nature underpins economic prosperity. According to the World Economic Forum, more than half of the world's GDP — over US$44 trillion — is moderately or highly dependent on ecosystem services such as clean water, soil fertility, pollination, and climate regulation. Globally, governments spend an estimated US$1.8 trillion per year on subsidies that are harmful to nature, dwarfing the US$143 billion invested annually in biodiversity conservation. Closing this yawning gap between nature-harming and nature-positive finance is one of the defining economic policy challenges of our era.

For Uzbekistan, ecosystem services are not an abstraction. Approximately 49% of the population lives in rural areas, the majority dependent on agriculture and natural resources for their livelihoods. Forests, covering 7.7% of the territory, protect river basins, create wind and sand protection belts, and host irreplaceable biodiversity. The country harbors approximately 27,000 known species, including 8% endemic higher vascular plants. Yet these ecosystems are under severe and growing pressure.