Energy Transition Enhancement in Emerging Economies: EU's and Japan's Strategies for Central Asia

Abstract

The paper operationalizes the notion of strategy for energy transition enhancement (SETE) as a specific set of energy transition diplomacy (ETD) instruments tuned to a particular external/ third country or region/ context. The paper shows that the ideational parameters and structural components of a (supra)nation's energy transition strategy influence its ETD. Being a geographically specific form of a (supra) nation's ETD, SETE is susceptible to the shifts in global, (supra)national, and third country/ region contexts. The paper examines the European Union (EU)'s and Japan's approaches to fostering energy transition in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan). Central Asian economies' robust renewable energy (RE) development potential is barely tapped due to technological, financing, and institutional constraints. The EU and Japan pursue energy transition security, possess certain technological advantages, and seek greater normative power in global decarbonization. The study argues that these aspects make cooperation among the EU, Japan, and Central Asian economies feasible and mutually attractive.

Received: 9 June 2024 | Revised: 18 November 2024 | Accepted: 26 December 2024

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares that she has no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in United Nations Climate Change at https://unfccc.int/NDCREG, in United Nations Climate Change at https://unfccc.int/node/61095, in United Nations Trade and Development Data Hub at https://unctadstat.unctad.org/datacentre/dataviewer/US.FTRI, in Climatescope by Bloomberg NEF at https://www.global-climatescope.org

Author Contribution Statement

Elena Shadrina: Conceptualization, Methodology, Resources, Data curation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.