Vanishing before our eyes: the race to save the Caspian Sea

The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth. It is also facing an escalating environmental crisis that has seen its water levels fall by 2.5 meters over the past 20 years. This dramatic retreat risks not only ecological, but also human and geopolitical upheaval across the entire region.

How are the bordering countries responding to those challenges – and do the current measures suffice? To find out, Boris spoke to Vadim Ni, founder of 'Save the Caspian Sea'.

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The Eurasian Climate Brief is a podcast dedicated to climate issues in the region stretching from Eastern Europe to Russia down to the Caucasus and Central Asia.

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http://savethecaspiansea.com/

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This episode is supported by n-ost, a media NGO and European Journalistic Network committed to cross-border and multi-prospective reporting, and made by:

• Boris Schneider, political economist. European Programme Manager at Clean Energy Wire CLEW (Berlin). Has worked as a specialist on Eastern European climate and energy topics, amongst others for n-ost and the German Economic Team.
• Angelina Davydova, environmental/climate journalist. Editor of the magazine Environment and Rights, co-host of the podcast The Day After Tomorrow (Posle Zavtra). Environmental projects coordinator with the Dialogue for Understanding e. V (Berlin). Fellow with the Institute for Global Reconstitution (Berlin). Observer of the UN climate negotiations (UNFCCC) since 2008. Expert/editor of the Ukraine War Environmental CUNFCCC) since 2008. Expert/editor of the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group.

Jingle: Natallia Kunitskaya (Mustelide)
Sound editing & mixing: Angelo Tripkovsky

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:16

Hello and welcome to the Eurasian Climate Brief, your podcast on climate stories in Central Asia. My name is Angelina Davudova, and I'm being joined by my colleague Boris Schneider.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Hi Angelina.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

This episode was supported by NOST, which is a media NGO and European journalistic network committed to cross-border and multi-prospective reporting. Today we're going to look at the ecological situation around the Caspian Sea. So for those of you who have never been in the area, I would like to give a few basic, very interesting facts about the Caspian Sea. So it's the largest Andor Hague lake in the world, which means it has a closed basin. It has no natural outflow except evaporation. It's a huge lake. It is so large that it's actually bigger than Germany. So we keep saying sea, but in fact, like geographically speaking, it's a lake. It's completely enclosed by land and it has no natural outlet to the world ocean. As I already mentioned, it's a closed basin, and there are 130 rivers which flow into the Caspian Sea or Lake. The largest river is Volga, but there's no river flowing out of the lake. Why is it called a sea? Well, basically, if you ever at its source, you notice that it's huge, it's enormous, it's salty, it has waves as well, it has tides and currents. And for people early in history, it looked and behaved much more like a real sea than an ordinary lake. And the name became established long before modern geography classified water bodies systematically. And that's why we're still using it. Maybe another comment on the salt. The Caspian Sea contains salt water, but it's about one-third as salty as normal ocean water. So you know, not that salty, but still a little bit. Another very interesting fact, and the key word here is oil, is that the Caspian region around Baku is considered one of the birthplaces of the modern oil industry. In 1846, one of the world's first, and according to some sources, actually the first modern oil well was drilled at Bibi Haybat near Baku. That was more than a decade before Edwin Drake's famous 1859 well in Pennsylvania. So where are we now? There are five countries around the Caspian Sea, among them Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Russia, Iran, and Azerbaijan. Now, most of these countries are extracting oil or gas. Basically, four of the five countries, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan, are extracting both oil and gas in the Caspian Sea region. We'll speak about this with our guests later in the episode today, also about oil and gas extraction, environmental and climate consequences of this, also emissions of the countries. So stay on. And then final remark from my side, many of you have probably heard or even tried the black caviar. And historically, the Caspian region was one of the main centers of the world black caviar industry. Black caviar comes from various kinds of sturgeon fish, and wild Caspian sturgeon populations have been declining and almost collapsing. There are a few traditional caviar species, including beluga, Russian sturgeon, Persian Sturgeon, and a few other ones. But International Union for Conservation of Nature says that essentially all the major Caspian populations are now being listed as critically endangered. They have been hit by overfishing and poaching, but also by dams. Dams block spawning migrations up rivers such as Volgar and Beluga in particular has declined by more than 95% over the long term. So now most black caviar that you find somewhere is normally not from the wild Caspian sturgeon, but it's coming from the farm sturgeon. And surprisingly, probably one final fact from me, that now the countries which produce black caviar are also slightly different countries than the ones who used to do it a century ago. So now China produces roughly half of global farmed black caviar. Russia still produces a lot, Iran does, and surprisingly, Italy also does a lot. So it's China, Russia, Italy, Iran, and many other countries. And most of legal caviar, and I very much hope that whenever you're interested in consuming black caviar, you're also interested in consuming sustainably produced caviar that comes from Sturgeon Farmers. So now here we go. We have our guest today, as always. His name is Vadim Ni. He comes from Al Mati, Kazakhstan. He's an environmental lawyer and environmental and climate expert working in Central Asia. Vadim is busy working in the Social Ecological Fund, and he's also a participant of various environmental campaigns. One of these campaigns is called Save the Caspian Sea. So my colleague Boris spoke to Vadim Ni about environmental and climate challenges for the Caspian Sea, including, as I already mentioned, long-term decline in water levels, including pollution, including impact on biodiversity in the region. But he was also talking a lot about what the five countries around the Caspian Sea are doing to restore the ecosystem of the sea. What's effective, what's not so effective. And he also briefly mentions the work and efficiency of various international conventions on protection of the Caspian Sea. So here we go. Boris, the floor is yours.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Hello, Vadim. Thank you so much for joining the Eurasian Climate Brief podcast. Could you please introduce your work to our listeners?

SPEAKER_02 6:20

I'm Vadim Ni. I'm based in Almaty, Kazakhstan. I work as an environmental lawyer, drafting legislation for countries of Central Asia, mainland climate change, adaptation and mitigation. And also I am actively participating in various environmental campaigns organized by my organization, Social Ecological Fund, or other organizations or local communities. One of them is Save the Caspian Sea campaign, which we are promoting as an international campaign, but it's not the only one campaign which I support as an environmental lawyer. There is another current one. It's against the construction of a ski resort near Al Mati. It's safe Kogjalau campaign. That's more or less what I can say about my activity.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Thank you very much. And as we are focusing on the Caspian Sea today, could you please describe to our listeners what are the main ecological challenges which the Caspian Sea is facing in our time? And also where are these challenges coming from? And how does all of that affect local biodiversity?

SPEAKER_02 7:39

The Caspian Sea is currently in a state of environmental crisis. It's facing a number of ecological challenges. What we are seeing is a combination of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss, all happening at once and reinforcing each other. Over the past two decades, the sea level has already dropped by nearly two meters, and the situation is particularly severe in Kazakhstan's northern Caspian, which is shallow and disappearing the fastest. Climate change is the main driver of what is happening with the Caspian Sea. The Volga River supplies over 80% of the Caspian inflow, but declining river discharge combined with rising temperatures and is accelerating evaporation. So production of the Caspian Sea level of 9 to 18 meters by the end of the century under medium or high emission scenarios. So the consequences for biodiversity are significant. The Caspian Seal population has declined by around 90%. Sturgeon population has also dropped by about 90%, but it's mainly due to the previous overfishing and poaching. And then what we experience also is mass die-offs of Caspian seals, which are becoming regular. Around 2,000 corpses of dead seals were discovered in 2024 on the Kazakhs coast. And this year the tragedy is repeating again. So we do not expect that the situation will improve in near future because the global warming is even limited to two degrees Celsius, the sea levels are projected to fall by 10 meters by the end of the century.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Right. And just to come back to one point that you raised these declining populations, for example, the seals, is that happening because the water gets warmer or just because it gets more shallow and it is more difficult for them to, for example, catch fish?

SPEAKER_02 10:15

I think it's due to global warming. It's clear because they had to change their habitats. And this fact established by scientists who regularly monitoring their habitats, and some cases where they were unable to discover any seals and their previous habitats. So it's due to the climate change, but also, of course, the oil pollution and disturbance at the sea also make this situation even more severe. For instance, on offshore oil operation in Kazakhstan's part of the Caspian Sea, yes, of course it's impacting the Caspian Seals.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Right. And how are the local communities living on the Caspian Sea affected by these challenges?

SPEAKER_02 11:06

We should discuss it from the perspective of the past. Twenty years ago, the main environmental concerns for the local communities were related to pollution, poaching, and overfishing of sturgeon, as well as the introduction of invasive species like the neumioopsis, the comp jellyfish. But today the main concern for local communities is the declining of water level of the Caspian Sea. This is an issue affecting all five Caspian countries, even some of them are in the more deeper parts of the Caspian Sea. But people in all five countries can see the changes with their own eyes, and they are very concerned about that the shoreline is gradually moving farther away and the seabed is being exposed. At the government level, the challenges openly acknowledged in some countries, I would say more openly than in other countries. I would say Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are more active in recognition of the concerns with the declining level of the Caspian Sea. Some regions in Russia, from Turkmenistan and Iran, we are still expecting more active reaction to what's going on with the Caspian Sea. And the declining water level of the Caspian Sea is creating problems for different sectors of the economy. It's for shipping and cargo transportations, fisheries, tourism, and even drinking water supply in the city of Aktau. I can provide, of course, examples from Kazakhstan because I'm more familiar with the situation in Kazakhstan. The shrinkage already required huge investments in making drenching works in seaports of Aktao and Kurik. Also, the decline in the sea level is making fishing increasingly difficult in the northern part of the Caspian, including Kazakhstan-Atrao region. 20 years ago, it was the leading region for fishery in Kazakhstan, but now its role has been reduced. Even on the Caspian Sea, the role in fishing has shifted to the Manguist region. In 2006, the Aterao region accounted for around 40% of Kazakhstan's total fish catch, and now it's only 20% of total fish catch, and it's dropped from almost 40,000 tons to less than 10,000 tons per year. So we can see also that tourism is impacted by climate change. In recent years, there was huge investments in construction of expensive hotels in Aktau. And as the sea gradually retreats, the hotels along the coastline in Aktau are becoming less attractive for tourists. And there is also another issue, as I said, it's drinking water. At the sea level falls, the water supply system in Aktau is periodically affected, and sometimes water does not reach the upper floors of buildings in the city because they are using the seawater for drinking water.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

Wow, I mean that sounds all really, really dramatic. And if we now look at the question of emissions, what are the main developments in this field? I guess the oil industry and other fossil industries are the most important contributors here. But what is the situation regarding emissions around the Caspian Sea right now?

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Of course, the offshore and onshore oil operation as well as shipping and cargo transportation on the Caspian Sea are expanding. And they are the main sources of pollution, and they are increasing. It concerns oil spills from deposits, but from ships, which are discharging so-called ballast water into the Caspian Sea. Not all of them, but some outdated ships, they are doing so. We can see it using the satellite images of the Caspian Sea. Also, the air pollution are increasing from oil deposits, including the very dangerous hydrogen sulfet. The smell of it you can feel in from time to time in Aktau in Aterau. And also the extracted sulfur from oil is stored on the shores in the Caspian region, because the oil in the Kazakhstan's part of the Caspian Sea is very sulfur-rich. And of course, because it's we are discussing the fossil fuel industries, it's also leading to the increase of greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, Kazakhstan has suspended its annual reporting on greenhouse gases emissions under the UN framework convention on climate change. It was happening since 2025. So the latest national GG Inventory Report was published in 2024, and it's using the as the most latest data from 2022. So in 2022, our emissions exceeded 350 million tons in CO2 equivalent, which is very close to our baseline emissions in 1990, which was 385 million tons. So it's likely that we already reached the 1990 level of JG emissions, probably even exceeded them. And of course, the fossil fuels play a significant role in decreasing JG emissions because the oil operations are expanding. On some deposits, huge deposits, there are plans to increase even the oil extraction. For instance, it was more or less 90 million tons per year, but the even the short-term perspective, they are expecting to increase the oil production up to 100 million tons per year. So it also will increase the transportation of cargo. And we are progressing with some renewables. It's almost 8.5% of electricity production for Kazakhstan. It's significant progress, but still the fossil fuel plays the most important source of electricity and energy production in Kazakhstan, more than 80%. So we are not switching significantly from fossil fuel energy to renewable energy.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Yes. And do you know, or did the government give a reason why they suspended the publication of the emissions data two years ago?

SPEAKER_02 18:47

Normally they will try to find some excuses. I didn't ask them, but for me, it's clear it has been done because we are reaching the level of 1990 baseline emissions, and we are far behind the target of the 2030 NDC of Kazakhstan, which is minus 50% to the levels of emissions in 1990. That's why they're trying to hide the data. That's the only reason which I can see as a reasonable one.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Right. And if we now get back to the Caspian Sea, you already mentioned that you have the feeling that two countries, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, are doing more to protect it or to mitigate the current situation. Can you tell our listeners a little bit what the most important measures are that, for example, Kazakhstan is taking around the Caspian Sea and whether these measures are effective, in your opinion, but also what else needs to be done?

SPEAKER_02 19:59

I think that's this year. There was a regional ecological summit in Astana, which took place on 22nd till 24th of April. And one of the discussion points at that summit was the shrinkage of the Caspian Sea. It was a priority environmental issue for Kazakhstan. And they at least reached some consensus with Azerbaijan that they will measure the level of the Caspian Sea on a regular basis. There's also some discussion with some three other three Caspian countries, which were also represented at the summit in Africa. But in case of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, there was also a bilateral commission which discusses more on the expert level. So there are more advanced of these measurements to make the data on the level of the Caspian Sea regularly available. But of course, the country is also trying to propose some ideas, some even from private sectors. Some Russian companies, for instance, MTAs, approached me this year. But it's only at the beginning of the development. So they reported some progress, but we don't see any data in the public domain. So the companies should disclose the information through the portal established by the government. But so far, there are no publicly accessible data.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

So, despite the right steps, there is still a lot of work to be done. And is there any other topic that we didn't speak about yet that you would like to mention?

SPEAKER_02 22:12

I would like to mention that there is a Tehran Convention on the protection of the marine environment of the Caspan Sea. This year, on the 12th of August, was the 20th anniversary of the entry into force of this convention. However, there is no progress with implementation of that Tehran Convention. The Convention Permanent Secretariat has never been properly established. There is no functioning team or dedicated staff working on its implementation. Meeting of the Conference of the Parties are held irregularly. This year, Iran promised to hold a meeting of the Conference of the Parties in September. And they are attended only by a limited number of representatives of environmental ministries and some angels which are rather gongous. So it's no experts, no lawyers which are actively engaged in the implementation of that convention. And also the convention is to some extent, the text of the convention is already outdated. Because it's still referring to the fluctuation on the Caspian Sea level, even though we can say that is shrinking. The convention refers to the fluctuation, so it could be even rising, and even the status report of the Caspian Sea, the latest one published in 2018, even refers that it's likely that the Caspian Sea will rise in the next period, which didn't happen before. Actually, it was shrinking and very possibly. That's why this issue should be dealt both at the national level and the regional level by all by Caspian countries.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

As I said before, to me it's obvious that uh still a lot of work lies ahead of all the actors, all the parties involved. But on that note, thank you very much for your work, first of all, and the work of your organization. But also thanks a lot for this interview. I think that I learned a lot, and I hope that our listeners also enjoyed it. Thank you very much.

unknown 24:27

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Alright, that's all for today's episode, and we plan to be back very soon with the next one. Thank you so much, Boris, for doing this interview today. Just to remind you, you are listening to the Eurasian Climate Brief podcast, which is looking into what is happening in the area of climate, environment, sustainability in the region, stretching out from Central Asia to Eastern Europe. We hope that this episode was informative and interesting for you. Please follow, please rate, and share our work. And please continue listening to our podcasts on all the platforms that you are using. This episode was supported by NOST, which is a media and jo and European journalistic network committed to cross-border and multi-prospective reporting. Reach out to us, reach out with your ideas, with your feedback, with your stories. Stay in touch. Thank you for being with us.