The Government of Georgia on Wednesday approved the climate change action plan for 2024-2025, which outlines mitigation measures in energy generation and transmission, transport, buildings, industry, agriculture, waste management and forestry, according to Agenda.ge.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of Georgia said the total budget of the action plan was ₾3,694,328,186 ($1.36bln).

The body added a “significant share” of the funding would come from infrastructure projects in the energy and waste sectors.

“In particular, priority areas in the energy sector will be the construction of wind, solar and hydropower plants. In the waste sector, it is important to start forming new landfills and upgrading existing ones, as well as construction of urban waste water treatment facilities”, it said.

The action plan also included improvements in the following fields:

Transport - modernisation of metro stations, promotion of cable transport development, arrangement of bicycle paths, introduction of a technical mechanism for controlling the level of emissions from vehicles

Agriculture - improvement of sustainable management of windbreaks and promotion of climate-smart agricultural practices through awareness-raising

Forests - restoration and replanting in degraded forest areas and improvement of sustainable forest management

The Ministry also credited measures in the 2021-2023 and 2024-2025 climate action plans with enabling the authorities to avoid “10 to 12 percent higher climate change-causing emissions” across Georgia.