The west might see Kazakhstan as an autocracy,
but Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, does not.
He says it's just a democracy that has elected the same
president for almost three decades.
In this time, the president and his country
have been made very rich by huge oil, gas and coal reserves.
Wells are used to build a gleaming new capital - Astana.
But despite all those fossil resources,
in 2016 Nazarbayev committed the country to phasing out oil and coal
in favour of renewable energy.
Last year the state spent around $5bn
on a vast Expo Centre to host an international forum on future energy.
Nazarbayev sees Kazakhstan as a green superpower of the future.
In Paris, Nazarbayev committed Kazakhstan to using 50% renewable energy by 2050.
Kazakhstan is as rich in renewable energy as it is in fossil fuels.
With more than 300 sunny days a year,
the country could easily power itself on solar energy alone.
These green resources are attracting foreign investment.
The largest solar power plant in Central Asia recently opened in the country's south,
funded by the European Development Bank.
A state-of-the-art solar panel factory, on the outskirts of Astana,
was also built with private money.
There are a few snags in the country's green ambitions,
Neighbouring China's effective domination
of the solar panel market, means this is likely to remain
Kazakhstan's only solar panel factory and so far, the country's green technology revolution
hasn't spread far beyond the capital.
Kazakhstan is roughly the size of western Europe.
It's huge.
And the Aral Sea is one of its most remote regions.
Tastubek is a fishing village that used to sit on the Aral Sea shore
but over irrigation in the Soviet era, reduced the sea by an area roughly the size of Ireland.
So the village is now a 20-minute drive from the water
and the sea bed is grazing land for horses and camels.
The sea's disappearance is considered one of the world's worst environmental disasters.
Kydyrbai Ibragimov watched it happen.
In the 80s, the World Bank invested millions of dollars in a dam project to
revive the Aral Sea.
Fish stocks quadrupled and many of the families that had left returned.
Kydyrbai's son, Omirserik, is one of the new generation of Tastubek fishermen.
Kydyrbai has never been to the capital, Astana.
And he says no one from the government has ever been to Tastubek.
Rather than solar energy or wind farms,
he's more concerned that no one is paying attention to the water level in the Aral Sea
which he says it's dropping again.
In such a huge country, where seas are disappearing
and people don't yet have roads or running water,
the president's green ambitions might seem a bit previous.
Particularly when his government is relying on private investment
to fund this 'green revolution'.
It's pretty unbelievable to think that twenty years ago none of this existed.
Yeah none of it, a step was here.
The two yellow buildings, near that is the governmental complex.
But there's no part of the state budget that invests in it?
Would that not help?
Of course major challenges like the restructuring of a national economy,
can be more easily overcome when there's little threat of political opposition.