Vyacheslav Zakharov: "Mankind Still Does Not Have a Solution to Climate Problems"

10:18, July 30, 2021

Mathias Kruse, Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Ekaterinburg, met with university climate scientists

Leading climate scientists of the Ural Federal University Vyacheslav Zakharov and Konstantin Gribanov held a working meeting with the Consul General of Germany in Ekaterinburg Mathias Kruse, which was the initiative of the diplomat. During the conversation, the researchers highlighted opportunities for cooperation with the German side.

"The topic of climate change is literally a global one: it is impossible for one state or even a group of countries to stabilize the atmosphere. Despite the efforts of scientists and politicians, the concentration of greenhouse gases is steadily increasing. At the moment we manage to monitor emissions, but the problem with carbon dioxide is not solved," said Vyacheslav Zakharov, head of the Department of Climate and Environmental Physics.

Victor Valdayskikh, the head of the Ural-Carbon project and director of the university botanical garden, told about the idea of creating a network of carbon test sites in Russia. This month, the program of the scientific and educational platform for the study of the carbon balance in the region received a positive conclusion of the expert council of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia.

"The polygon will be represented by taiga forests, which make up 70% of the territory of the Sverdlovsk region and are one of the most important reservoirs of carbon runoff from the atmosphere due to photosynthesis and its long-term storage. The sites for the research will be our Kourovka Astronomical Observatory and the educational and experimental farm of the Ural Forestry. Academic institutes are involved in the project, now we attract industrial partners to cooperation," Valdayskikh noted.

Mathias Kruse confirmed that the climate agenda remains one of the most important in the world, judging by the statements of politicians, including in the context of the Russian-German year of economy and sustainable development.

"We are interested in what you see as opportunities for cooperation between researchers of the two countries. We are ready for joint activities with the participation of German scientists as soon as possible," the consul general stressed.

He also added that Germany has experience in organizing carbon polygons and accepted the invitation of Ural Federal University Vice-Rector for Science Alexander Germanenko to visit the university's laboratories for detailed meetings with university scientists.

Reference

A carbon test site is a plot of land with typical terrain, soil, and vegetation where experiments are conducted to control the balance of climatically active gases of natural ecosystems. The pilot project of creation of carbon polygons in Russia was launched by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation in 2021. The first sites will be created in the Chechen Republic, the Krasnodar Territory, the Kaliningrad, Novosibirsk, Sakhalin, Sverdlovsk, and Tyumen Regions.

The Ural Federal University has 30 partner educational and scientific organizations in Germany; in the last six years, the university has published 792 publications with colleagues from 129 German universities. Three German students are currently studying at the university, and seven Ural Federal University students are studying in Germany. Six of the Ural Federal University staff have German citizenship: three research assistants and three faculty members.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is an honorary doctor of UrFU and the initiator of a joint Russian-German summer school on energy.