The Termez Platform: Uniting Central and South Asia against Climate Change
From 19 to 21 May 2025, the city of Termez will host the inaugural meeting of the Termez Dialogue on Connectivity between Central and South Asia, under the theme “Building a Common Space of Peace, Friendship, and Prosperity.” This dialogue platform is being launched as part of Uzbekistan’s ongoing efforts to strengthen interregional connectivity and foster deeper partnerships between Central and South Asia.
The Termez Platform represents Uzbekistan’s latest strategic initiative to promote regional interconnectivity and partnership between Central and South Asia. Building on the outcomes of the 2021 Tashkent High-Level International Conference “Central and South Asia: Regional Connectivity, Challenges and Opportunities” and the subsequent UN General Assembly resolution “Strengthening connectivity between Central and South Asia” (adopted 11 July 2022), the Platform seeks to create a space for inclusive dialogue, cooperation, and joint development across two historically and culturally linked regions.
The inaugural activities of the Termez Platform which will take place in May 2025 will include site visits to key logistics facilities such as the Termez International Trade Center and Termez Cargo Center, as well as high-level sessions on security, economic partnerships, and expert dialogue. The initiative has already gained broad international support, with participation confirmed from dozens of countries and organizations, including the UN, SCO, and international financial institutions.
The Termez Platform, established as a space for multi-level dialogue (political, economic, and expert-based), covers a broad range of issues: from strengthening political dialogue and economic ties to security, digital transformation, food and energy security, sustainable development, and, in particular, climate action.
The Relevance of the Climate Agenda
As climate change accelerates, countries across Central and South Asia are grappling with increasingly severe natural disasters. In 2021 and 2022, droughts devastated livestock in Kazakhstan and reduced harvests in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The summer of 2023 was the hottest on record, with temperatures soaring above 47°C in parts of Turkmenistan and southern Uzbekistan. In South Asia, catastrophic floods in Pakistan submerged one-third of the country in 2022, affecting more than 30 million people. India and Bangladesh now frequently face both droughts and floods within the same season, further deepening the socio-economic vulnerability of millions. The vital glaciers of the Pamirs and Himalayas — lifelines for billions — continue to retreat at alarming rates.
This harsh climate reality has created a new shared language across the region. From Tashkent to Dhaka to Delhi, leaders increasingly recognize that isolated national efforts cannot match the scale of this existential threat. The time has come for a unified approach — a platform where countries can forge joint solutions, exchange cutting-edge scientific knowledge, and coordinate sustainable development initiatives. The Termez Dialogue aims to be this catalyst, serving as a permanent interregional forum addressing a spectrum of challenges, with climate action at its core.
The Termez Vision for Climate Action
The Termez Platform’s climate agenda focuses on developing harmonised approaches to climate adaptation and risk mitigation while facilitating the exchange of best practices and the deployment of water and energy conservation technologies. Both regions urgently need robust climate strategies centered on:
- Sustainable resource management systems
- Accelerated renewable energy development
- Green agricultural transformation
- Climate-resilient infrastructure modernization
- Advanced early warning and disaster response networks
By actively engaging scientific communities and private sector innovators, the platform will unlock opportunities for cross-regional projects, technology transfer, and coordinated investment.
Afghanistan: The Critical Bridge
Afghanistan occupies a pivotal position in the Termez Dialogue as the natural bridge and connector between these regions. Including Afghanistan in interregional climate initiatives ensures true inclusivity while supporting its sustainable development through green economy pathways. Given its high vulnerability to climate impacts, Afghanistan could serve as both a testing ground for pioneering projects and play a meaningful role in shaping shared interregional solutions.
Advancing Water Cooperation
The Termez Platform also offers a powerful channel for promoting international water law principles. Central Asian nations, with their extensive experience under the Helsinki Convention on Transboundary Watercourses (1992), can support interested South Asian countries in either joining this framework or establishing bilateral and multilateral agreements based on its principles-expertise particularly valuable as South Asia confronts growing competition for shared water resources.
A New Beginning
The Termez Platform has the potential to become more than a symbol of the deep historical ties between Central and South Asia. It can serve as a practical, strategic mechanism for inter-regional collaboration on the defining challenge of our time: climate security. By pooling knowledge, resources, and a shared vision for prosperity, these nations can establish a groundbreaking environmental and climate partnership that revitalizes their ties and transforms climate threats into a unifying force. Only by acting together can we ensure environmental and political resilience across these two vital regions, home to over a billion people.
In today’s context of rapid population growth, accelerating climate change, and an increasing frequency of natural disasters, regional cooperation in environmental protection and green development has never been more critical. In this regard, it would be highly beneficial to explore the establishment of a permanent interregional conference, held on a rotating basis among countries of Central and South Asia. Such a forum could provide an essential platform for formulating joint proposals and recommendations aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate and environmental challenges.
Furthermore, the pressing nature of these trends underscores the importance of adopting, under the auspices of the UN World Food Programme, a Regional Cooperation Programme on Food Security. The programme would aim to enhance interregional agro-industrial cooperation, promote the development of smart agriculture, introduce advanced water-saving technologies, breed high-yield and climate-resilient crop varieties, and improve livestock genetics to bolster agricultural sustainability across the region.
