According to the plan of Year of Science and Technologies the August of 2021 is a month of climate and ecology. Global trends demonstrate that the atmospheric average temperature will gain 1-2 degrees by 2100; however, the humanity needs to face the challenge of global warming today. That’s why Russia creates carbon test ranges – territories with unique ecosystem for the implementation of greenhouse gases emission control measures. The work on their creation is conducted by Ministry of Education and Science in cooperation with Universities, scientific organizations and large companies.
Carbon test ranges allows to conduct the most important environmental research. They lay the foundation of Russian greenhouse gases monitoring system, which uses the remote measuring methods and the AI data processing.
“Carbon test ranges are one of the most important projects of 2021, as they will serve as the base for the Russian greenhouse gases monitoring system. We plan to present one of the first ranges in the end of August”, - says Valery Falkov, the Minister of Science and Higher Education, during his press-conference in INA “Russia Today”. He also mentioned that carbon test ranges are special artificial ecosystems, dedicated to the emission and CO2 balance research, which allows to conduct the development and adaptation of remote underground and above-ground plant biomass calculation technologies, mathematical models of CO2 balance and climate.
“We are planning to create carbon test ranges in Novosibirsk, Tumen, Sverdlovsk and Kaliningrad region, on Krasnodar Territory, the Chechen Republic and Sakhalin”, – highlights Valery Falkov.
According to him, the hydrometeorological satellite “Arctica M” was launched this year. This satellite allows to see the Arctic and the North of Russia from the space and make conclusions on the scale of climate change. A number of educational, research, state and commercial organizations are working on the creation of the newest technological developments in the field of climate. For example, the Institute of Ecological Engineering and Research has introduced the technology of “the best environment-oriented practices” during environmental damage assessment of industrial enterprises. RAS Geography Institute has created the atlas of all droughts of the last 600 years. The Antarctic station “Vostok” has made a breakthrough in the historic climatology by analyzing the CO2 atmospheric concentration for the last hundreds of thousands of years.
Sergey Anoprienko, the deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation, also participated in the press-conference. He spoke about the importance of issues that are being solved by the national project “Ecology” and highlighted the crucial significance of the work, conducted by the Russian scientists in the field of climate and ecology.
“This work is the base for our efficient politics, and it will help us to solve the problem of climate changes. The most important role here is played by our people, our scientists, who pass their knowledge to young specialists”, – noted Sergey Anoprienko.
According to him, the climate changes can be seen today perfectly clear. For example, only for the last 2-3 years forest fires have been coming to Arctics, Yakutia and Chukotka.
“The issue of climate and ecology studies becomes crucial in these difficult conditions. Our main task is to make our climate projects significant on the international level”, – says Sergey Anoprienko.
According to Maksim Remchukov, the Director for Sustainable Development in “Sibur” company, their enterprise has become a partner in the project of creating carbon test ranges in Tumen. “This project is crucial for us; it was launched by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and it combines the environmental agenda with the technological innovations. A separate section is connected with the staff training”, – says Maksim Remchukov. He believes that the combination of climate, technologies and innovations attracts young specialists.
This statement is proved by student polls. According to Stanislav Kutuzov, the Head of Glaciology Department of the RAS and Vice-President of International Association of Cryosphere Sciences, 70% of students, applying for the Geographical Faculty, do worry for the future of our planet.
“This is the philosophy of the new generation. There are many catalytic measures and new educational programs, which support their aspire for the environmental safety. It’s high time for the new generation to start their scientific activity, as, for example, in 2021-2024 the Russian Science Foundation will receive additional 8,3 billion of rubles for the support of young scientists. The average age of the most researches in Russia today is 30-39 years: it’s really amazing. In the same time the researches in the fields of climate and ecology are in extreme demand. Only in 2020 you could find 43 thousand of articles with the key words “climate changes”, according to the leading citing system Web of Science. And this numbers are doubling every 4-5 years”, – says Stanislav Kutuzov.
Pavel Revel-Muroza, the Vice-President in PAO “Transneft”, says that the environmental preservation and providing a high level of environmental safety of the manufacturing facilities are the top 2 priorities of “Transneft”, the biggest oil transporting company in the world.
PAO “Transneft” conducts a complex of events, aimed at greenhouse gases emission reduction: for example, oil boiling plant switching from fuel to gas, technical re-equipping of boiling plants with new energy-efficient boilers. Moreover, there are 297 waste water treatment plants on the PAO “Transneft” objects, 53 licensed laboratories of environmental and analytical control.
According to the order of the President of the Russian Federation (25 December, 2020), 2021 is the Year of Science and Technologies. The main aim of 2021 is to attract talented youth in the sphere of science and technologies and to implement the Strategy of Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation.
