Tajik president Emomali Rahmon is using the 64th session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York to promote his country's hydroelectric potential.
Avesta news agency reported Wednesday that Rakhmon told round-table participants at the U.N. Summit on Climate Change that there is a global need for urgent action to promote and develop renewable energy sources and energy efficiency technologies that reduce dependence on traditional fossil-fuel based energy sources, which cause tremendous environmental damage.
Rakhmon said, "This is a time when the region has enormous hydroelectric potential, of which only 10 percent is currently used. In Tajikistan alone, its annual potential hydroelectric resources are more than 527 billion kilowatt hours, which exceeds the current needs of all the countries of Central Asia by a factor of three."
Tajikistan is the poorest of the former Soviet republics and for years has been unsuccessfully seeking funding to complete a number of unfinished Soviet era hydroelectric power cascades, including the 3,600 megawatt Rogun hydroelectric power station on the Vakhsh River, 70 miles east of the capital, Dushanbe. Rakhmon is seeking an estimated $3.4 billion needed to complete the Rogun hydroelectric cascade.
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