Julia Ermolaeva has participated in the latest Climate Forum, which was held in Moscow’s Zaryadye Park on September 4-5, 2019. The main topics discussed in the Forum were the ecological modernisation of the industry and urban infrastructure and new and traditional ‘green’ economic tools in achieving the goal of reducing emissions.

One of the Forum’s participants was Merit Hort, a researcher, coordinator of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's “Best Available Technologies” international project. She expressed that the long-term programs for eliminating hydrocarbon energy sources using environmental management standards ISO 4001 and energy audits ISO 50001 turned out to be most effective. Decarbonization and reduction of forest use are accompanied by taxes in Sweden, and the best available technologies (hereinafter BAT) became available for all sectors of the economy. Richard Almgren, director of ‘Green Business’ company, an expert in international projects in the field of environmental and technological modernization, BAT and improving production’s energy efficiency improvement (Sweden), emphasized that such a scheme could be applicable to the Barents Sea project in a coalition of the main participating countries (Finland, Sweden, and Russia). Alina Averchenkova, Head of the Department for Management and Legislation of the Grantham Institute for Climate and the Environment divided the main tools into the “carrot” (tax benefits, grants, loans) and the “stick” (fees, fines) approach. Each country chooses its own tools regarding it national policies and the efficacy varies depending on the environmental objectives. Another forum’s participant was Tom Cumberledge, Deputy Director of the ‘Carbon Trust’ company, an expert in climate risk assessment and product development optimization, where the requirements for improving energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions for enterprises in a wide range of industries (UK) are considered. He has recognised that a well-prepared and accessible list of BAT and simplification of the procedure for receiving it for enterprises contributes to accelerated capital depreciation in terms of costs. It is important to identify the necessary industries, introduce the necessary economic tools and invest more as many enterprises experiencing lack of investments. Gianjacomo Dandrea, Corporate Responsibility Manager of the ‘Uniper SE’ company, has highlighted that it is necessary to study the asset management, environmental history of competitors and future partners to work with, since economic capital is involved in loans, investments, transformation and accumulation of natural and economic resources. Complete optimization of all sectors of the economy is impossible without the industries' cooperation based on the principles of a green economy.

The panel session “Microclimate comfort in cities” was attended by Ilya Zavaleev, HPBS Director, who spoke about civil engineering standards, the impact of microclimate on the citizen’s feelings, and the experience of changing the microclimate in the Skolkovo buildings by replacing construction materials. Francesca Vantagiato, researcher of climate policy and management at the University of California (USA), supposed that the topic of microclimate in urban planning was leading at Resilient cities 2019 and is becoming increasingly relevant for future developments in urban planning. Alexander Vodyanik, Advisor to the Head of Krasnodar Administration spoke about the concept of a thermodynamic landscape, where optimal indicators of kinetic, molecular energy, radiation, heat transfer, and vegetation are calculated based on air quality, building’s heat consumption, water phase transitions, local effects of temperature distribution on climate change and human self-awareness. Using this technique, the Krasnodar’s master plan was reviewed, the main thermal pollutants were identified.

Author: Julia Ermolaeva

Foto: https://www.gov.spb.ru/gov/otrasl/ecology/news/172363/