The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) may soon become a central regional platform promoting clean energy in Central Asia. It is currently building momentum in renewable energy by ramping up investment in energy generation, upgrading power grids, creating battery storage networks, and developing the renewable energy workforce in the region.
Central Asia needs to be proactive in securing SCO instruments that can build value-added clean energy supply chains in the region. This will help Central Asia strengthen its economic and political agency. The SCO is an intergovernmental organization established in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, building on the earlier “Shanghai Five” mechanism.
Since 2001, it has expanded to include India, Pakistan, Iran, and Belarus as full members, making it one of the world’s largest regional organizations in terms of geographic coverage and population. The SCO member states collectively possess over 50% of the world’s natural gas reserves, nearly 50% of the world’s known uranium reserves, rich mineral resources, and have high potential for producing wind and solar energy.
In 2006, Russia and Uzbekistan proposed establishing the SCO Energy Club. The proposal gained political support at the 2007 SCO Summit in Bishkek, where energy cooperation became a key item on the agenda, but member states differed over the club’s objectives and institutional design, delaying its formal establishment.
A major milestone came in December 2013, when SCO member states, observers, and dialogue partners signed a Memorandum of Understanding establishing the SCO Energy Club as a non-governmental consultative mechanism. After that, the Energy Club functioned as a forum for discussing regional energy strategies, infrastructure development, investment opportunities, energy security, and, more recently, energy transition.
It provided a venue where major energy exporters (Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, later Iran), major consumers (China and India), and transit countries (the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan) could discuss regional energy cooperation and identify investment opportunities.
The Energy Club regularly highlighted the importance of regional gas connectivity, but the construction and expansion of the Central Asia-China Gas Pipeline were negotiated and financed through bilateral agreements between China and Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, not through the Energy Club.
Still, the Energy Club was successful as a networking and agenda-setting platform. Its greatest contribution was reducing political and informational barriers among governments and energy companies, making it easier for countries, especially China and Russia, to pursue bilateral fossil fuel and infrastructure projects.
During its first two decades, the organization’s energy agenda focused primarily on energy security, oil and gas cooperation, electricity trade, and energy infrastructure, while references to renewable energy were infrequent and rhetorical. A significant shift occurred in 2021, when the SCO established the Meeting of Energy Ministers and adopted the Concept of Cooperation between the SCO Member States in the Energy Sector until 2030, which for the first time identified renewable energy, energy efficiency, low-carbon technologies, and green development as areas of cooperation.
The 2025 Tianjin Summit marked a notable shift in the SCO’s renewable energy agenda, moving from general commitments to more concrete initiatives. More significantly, China announced the establishment of a China–SCO Energy Cooperation Platform to promote practical collaboration, technology exchange, and investment among SCO members.