New Dinosaur Species Uncovered in Mongolia www.sci-news.com

Paleontologists in Mongolia have discovered a new species of hadrosauroid dinosaur that roamed what is now the Gobi Desert approximately 90 million years ago.

Paving the way to sustainable heating in Mongolia www.blog.worldbank.org

In Ulaanbaatar (UB), the coldest capital city in the world, and one with the highest recorded levels of air pollution—surpassing even the megacities of Beijing and New Delhi—access to reliable and clean heating services is essential for survival.

Driven by population growth, urbanization, and economic development in UB, the demand for heating has been increasing rapidly. But the current district heating (DH) infrastructure that serves most urban buildings is insufficient, unreliable and deteriorating due to the lack of funds for investments and maintenance. System losses are high, and more than half of transmission pipelines are in urgent need of repair. To make matters worse, the fragmented institutional structure limits incentives to make the system more efficient and constrains long-term investment planning. Meanwhile, on the demand side, the poor thermal insulation of buildings means significant heat losses, adding to the sector’s struggle to meet the increasing demand.

In urban areas, many people live in old pre-cast panel buildings with insufficient thermal insulation of walls and roofs and poorly sealed windows. Customers must therefore increase their heating use to compensate for high heat losses and to maintain warm room temperatures. What’s more, the heat tariff levels are way below cost-recovery level, customers are billed based on square meters of space for heat, and devices are not installed for customers to control their heat consumption. This inadvertently discourages conservation practices.

In ger districts—informal settlements in the outskirts of UB where nearly half of the city’s population lives—homes are not connected to the DH network. Most of them burn raw coal and/or wood to keep warm in winter. The predominantly lower- to middle-income migrant workers who reside in these unplanned districts burn over a million tons of raw coal per year. This is one of the leading causes of the city’s high levels of air pollution in winter, as well as smog-induced public health problems. On January 30, 2018, one station in UB recorded a reading of 3,320 micrograms per cubic meter — 133 times what the World Health Organization considers safe, and more than six times what it considers hazardous.

The government of Mongolia has long recognized the urgent need for action in the heating sector. As a top priority, the government has set the vision to develop a reliable, adequate, sustainable and self-financed district heating systems in urban areas and to reduce emissions from non-network heating by switching to cleaner alternatives in ger areas.

What needs to be done to realize the government’s vision? Through the Ulaanbaatar Efficient Heating Project supported by the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), the World Bank has helped the government identify a combination of investment measures and recommendations for institutional and regulatory reforms to improve efficiency and the financial and environmental sustainability of the heating sector to put it on a more sustainable path.

Key recommendations to improve the DH sector include:

Rehabilitate and expand heat production, transmission, and distribution to improve service quality and supply reliability, and connect new customers in urban and selected ger areas to the network;
Introduce a joint water management program to identify the location of water leaks, thus creating water balance and targeting leak repairs and water quality improvement;
Introduce a facilitated transition to consumption-based billing (CBB) so consumers can pay their bills based on based on their consumption levels;
Gradually implement heat tariff reforms to recover costs for sustained system operations and maintenance in the sector and incentivize customers to make energy efficiency improvements;
Streamline the institutional arrangement of housing companies and improving the contracts between the generation, transmission, distribution companies and their consumers;
Improve regulatory frameworks to ensure all DH companies along the supply chain comply with strengthened standards for accountability.
The study also provided recommendations for non-network heating solutions in UB’s ger areas:
Replace polluting solid fuel-fired stoves, low pressure boilers, and heat-only-boilers in households and buildings in ger areas with clean alternatives, which could include clean stoves and boilers, DH systems, and electric heating appliances such as thermal storage heaters and heat pumps when suitable;
Implement an energy efficiency program for public buildings and residential houses in ger areas;
Strengthen the regulations and enforcement of standards of clean heating appliances (clean stoves and boilers, electric thermal storage heaters, etc.) and codes of house/building construction; and
Improve city planning and expand affordable housing in ger areas.
Based on a cost-benefit analysis of a comprehensive list of measures, priority investment plans were developed to include measures that are likely to have the highest economic return or are critically important to DH operations. It estimated that a $50 million investment program could connect 2,000 ger households to the DH network, improve service for 88,000 DH households, achieve 293 GWh fuel energy savings (representing approximately 15% of the heat energy delivered by the transmission company), and reduce 100,000 tons CO2 per year.

While the investments required to ensure a sustainable heating sector in UB are significant, the impacts for people and the environment are substantial. These investments can be carefully prioritized and financed through both public and private resources. Providing reliable, efficient and clean heating services is critical to building and maintaining a healthy workforce, a well-functioning economy, and improved quality of life for all residents in and around Ulaanbaatar.

Mongolian Business Membership Associations Supported Successfully www.applicatio.com

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development/European Union project “Support to Mongolian Economic Diversification through SME Access to Finance - Building Effective Business Membership Organisations in Mongolia 2017-2019”, which supports 12 Business Membership Organisations from various sectors, is coming to an end with a closing conference and awarding ceremony on April 19, 2019.
For well over 16 months, EBRD – with funding from the European Union – and its consulting and training partners have been supporting 12 Business Membership Organisations with together over 1000 members. The initiative aimed at strengthening the business associations and secure their sustainability in order support their members (mainly SME) now and in future. The support measures
included conferences, workshops for BMO staff and leadership, individual coaching, matching services and webinars.
More than 150 participants from associations attended 10 workshops implemented by the Consortium APPLICATIO/ICON (APPLICATIO Training & Management GmbH (www.applicatio.com) and ICON Institute (www.icon-institute.de)), and more than 700 coaching days were implemented by Mongolian experts and international coaches to ensure that associations grow in terms of paying members and financial figures and develop and implement new services for members.
As a result of the initiative, paying membership on average grew by well over 80%, almost all partners could improve their financial situation and well over 30 new services are offered by the partners of the programme. This forms a strong base for future, sustainable support of SME and thus economic development in Mongolia.
During the closing conference all BMO will report on their successes and give feedback on the programme. In addition, the best performing BMOs will be awarded prices – such as IT-equipment or consulting vouchers - that support their future work. In addition, all partners will be certified by EBRD and the European Union for their successful participation.
It might be a long way to support economic development by ensuring that Mongolian associations can support their members SMEs. A long but a sustainable and successful way!

Mongolian higher education to be internationally recognized www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Minister of Education, Culture, Science and Sports Yo.Baatarbileg today reported about Mongolia’s joining the UNESCO Regional Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications in Higher Education in Asia and the Pacific.

Mineral exports increases in the first quarter www.zgm.mn

Mining exports, the key driver for Mongolia's economic growth, slightly picked up in the first quarter of this year. Mongolia's economy is dependent based on a few mining commodities. The exports of these minerals, such as coal and copper, constitute the main inputs of the nation’s revenue. The coal supply, which accounts for about 25 percent of Mongolia's total export revenue, jumped 15 percent to 7.8 million tons in the first three months of this year. The country earned USD 644 million from coal exports, which is USD 130 million increase from the same period of the previous year.

National program on small and medium-sized enterprises approved www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar/MONTSAME/.The Cabinet approved the National Program on promoting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and assigned Ch.Ulaan, Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry, to oversee its implementation. Required funding for the program will be issued from annual state and local budgets, basic guidelines and foreign and international loan and assistance.

Opinion: Can Mongolia bring back its blue skies, clouded by coal?

With the onset of spring, the deep freeze of Mongolia’s winter begins to thaw and Ulaanbaatar residents can breathe more easily.

It is not just the receding cold that is cause for relief, but an improvement in the Mongolian capital’s air quality, along with the diminishing need to burn coal indoors for many of those living on its outskirts.

During winter, when temperatures in Mongolia drop to -40 degrees Celsius, generating heat in any form is not just for comfort but a necessity to survive. And for many of those living in the outer parts of the city, not connected to the main electricity grid, this means burning coal.

The result is that sometimes during winter, Ulaanbaatar experiences the worst air pollution in the world as a pall of coal smoke stifles the city.

Mongolia is striving to wean itself from its current reliance on coal but continues to face challenges as growing segments of its population rapidly urbanise.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF), the world’s largest fund supporting climate action in developing countries, is channelling climate finance flows to Mongolia to help it leapfrog to low-emission energy generation, while promoting alternatives to home coal combustion.

Backing the Mongolian government’s plan for renewables to account for 20 percent of national power capacity in 2020, and 30 percent by 2030, the GCF joined forces with local bank XacBank to finance a recently completed solar power plant in the country’s eastern Govisumber province. The 10MW Sumber Soum solar power plant is the first to be financed by a Mongolian bank.

The plant is slated to provide Mongolia with 20 percent of its solar power, and account for five percent of the country’s total renewable energy mix. XacBank CEO Bold Magvan, who credits a low-interest loan from the GCF to his bank for getting the solar plant up and running, believes its construction will “trigger another huge wave of Mongolian investors in solar energy”.

The key to rerouting the development tracks of countries like Mongolia onto low-emission pathways is to stimulate the local private sector to seek out investment opportunities that create profits without adding to the already dangerous levels of ecological strain on the planet.

Another joint GCF-XacBank initiative is providing loans to grassroots private sector players in Mongolia to introduce renewable energy and energy efficiency measures that boost their business prospects.

The bustling crowds in Ms Myagmarsuren’s shop on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, which sells solar-powered equipment, testify to the power of the market in driving low-emission innovation at a small scale.

Her main customers are herding families whose nomadic lifestyles mean they don’t have regular access to grid electricity. She credits the low-interest loan provided in the GCF-XacBank programme as a key factor in her shop’s economic viability, attracting an average of 100 customers daily.

While successful business and the Sumber Soum solar plant offer signs of shifting, low-emission market forces, Mongolia’s severe air pollution is proof that urgent further action is needed.

On bad air days in Ulaanbaatar, a cloying blanket of coal smoke attacks your body, assaulting your nose and mouth and permeating your clothes. A joint report by Mongolia’s National Centre for Public Health and UNICEF warned in February last year that air pollution had become a “child health crisis.”

Purevjav Gomboluudev, head of climate research at Mongolia’s Information and Research Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology and Environment, says the household combustion of coal in Ulaanbaatar’s outskirts is responsible for about 90 percent of the city’s air pollution.

Most of the outer city dwellers have migrated from the countryside during the past 30 years. Many were formally nomadic herders or farmers, and they now account for half of the capital’s population.

In a cruel twist, the effects of climate change are increasing this influx of migrants whose use of coal to keep themselves warm further worsens the climate dilemma.

Summers that are unusually dry followed by periods during winter which are exceptionally cold are known in Mongolia as dzuds, and they are being exacerbated by climate change. Increasingly, severe dzuds are straining the ability of nomads to keep their herds of sheep and cattle alive.

The GCF has begun working with the Asian Development Bank on an urban renewal project that is designed to construct apartments for Ulaanbaatar’s outer residents as an alternative to their current makeshift housing.

While these new residential areas are intended to be energy-efficient and maximise the use of renewable energy, they are also connected to the main power grid, negating the need to burn coal at home.

Ultimately, a major goal of these measures to lower emissions from energy use and phase out household coal combustion is to restore Mongolia’s image as a land of clear blue skies.

Signing of Memorandum of Cooperation between Japan and Mongolia on a Basic Framework for Proper Operation of the System pertaining to Foreign Human Resources with the Status of Residence of “Specified Skilled Worker” www.mofa.go.jp

On April 17 (Wednesday), the Memorandum of Cooperation on a Basic Framework for Proper Operation of the System pertaining to Foreign Human Resources with the Status of Residence of “Specified Skilled Worker” was signed in Tokyo between the National Police Agency, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan and the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Mongolia.

Asian Development Bank and Mongolia: Fact Sheet www.adb.org

ADB operations in Mongolia address infrastructure gaps, promote renewable energy, foster regional economic integration, expand access to basic urban services, and provide support to agribusiness.

Discussion held on new satellite city in Khushig Valley www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Chairman of the Citizens’ Representative Khural of the Capital city R.Dagva became acquainted with the general development plan for the satellite city, Aerocity, which will be built near the new airport in Khushig Valley, Tuv aimag, and held a discussion with the corresponding officials.