At a round-table discussion at the Rossiya Segodnya International Multimedia Press Centre, Russian experts, scientists and business representatives discussed the results of the Russian Climate Monitoring System and its development potential.
The project has become truly innovative and the first modern mega-project to combine research in natural, humanities, exact sciences into a comprehensive multidisciplinary result, practically oriented research that affects national climate policy.
More than 800 scientists from 50 scientific institutes united in six scientific consortiums took part in the first stage of the Russian Climate Monitoring System. As a result, they have found that Russia’s actual net emissions are 32 per cent lower than previously considered. This made it possible to change the strategic approach to achieving carbon neutrality and, instead of working on reducing greenhouse emissions, to focus on programmes to adapt the country to climate change. In addition, the creation of a National Climate-Related Substances Monitoring System has improved the accuracy of data and ranked it among the TOP-5 best in the world.
According to Pavel Smelov, Director General of CSR, ‘The work undertaken is colossal and necessary for everyone, because we will all suffer from climate change equally. The creation of the Russian Climate Monitoring System is the most effective non-financial measure to support business: the government does not give money to business directly, but this project gives business the greatest benefit,’ said Pavel Smelov.The climate agenda is not only an issue of reducing the pressure on the climate and protecting against unfavourable climatic phenomena through adaptation to climate change, but also an economic issue. It is a question of how we are trying to build a strategy of socio-economic development together with the achievement of the goals Russia has set for itself within the framework of global climate protection processes.
At the 29th session of the Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will be held from 11 to 22 November in Baku, Russia will present one of the main results of the scientists’ work of the six consortia – an inventory of anthropogenic emissions, which is calculated on the basis of new and updated coefficients. On the Science Day on 12 November in the Russian pavilion, Anna Romanovskaya, Head of the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory consortium and Director of the Yu. A. Izrael Institute of Global Climate and Ecology, will speak about it. On 18 November, the Russian Business Day will be held, where business representatives from other countries will be told about the results of supported scientific research. On 21 November, the Russian pavilion will host the Climate Policy Day.
‘Climate change is unstoppable and this means that adverse weather phenomena such as droughts, floods, melting permafrost will still occur, which requires spending on specific areas. This understanding leads to certain economic policy actions and reallocation of resources for climate change adaptation. Achieving the necessary level of decarbonisation of the economy is now possible through the use of cheaper methods,’ said Alexander Shirov, Director of the Institute of Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
‘The most important conclusion is that the absorbing capacity of Russian forests has been underestimated. The first predictive assessments show that in order to maintain a high greenhouse gas absorption potential and for adaptation, a transition to climate-optimised forestry is needed, involving the conservation of intact old-growth forests. This is our great wealth and a non-renewable natural resource that is a refugium of biodiversity – the provider of all ecosystem functions of forests, including climate regulation, and a storehouse of soil carbon. Logging in these forests leads to loss of biodiversity and huge emissions of carbon. It is important to strengthen the protection of forests from fires, to switch to less disruptive technologies for harvesting forest stands, as well as to increase the volume of afforestation and cultivation, including on unused agricultural land,’ said Natalia Lukina, Head of the RITM Carbon Consortium and Director of the Centre for Forest Ecology and Productivity. By 2030, when the monitoring network will be fully deployed, significant refinements are expected in estimates of carbon uptake by forests and other terrestrial ecosystems, including at the expense of soils.
Sergey Tverdokhleb, Deputy Chairman of the RSPP Committee on Climate Policy and Carbon Regulation, emphasised the importance of the work undertaken for business, but also the need for continuing this work. ‘Now, thanks to the fact that we have science-based data, we can reduce the same amount of emissions, but focusing on actions that not only cost significantly less, but also lead to other good results – increased energy efficiency, infrastructure replacement, improved environmental conditions, better quality housing. That is, things that actually improve people’s lives, not just aimed solely at decarbonisation measures. Emission reductions are a concomitant positive effect of these actions,’ he said.
‘We still lack a serious understanding of what is happening in the Arctic, on the permafrost, what is happening to the real risks to adaptation in different ecosystems and areas. This is a big scientific challenge that just needs to be addressed in the second stage. Understanding what is happening in these territories could overturn not only the climate negotiations in which we are participating, but also international negotiations in general. Because this is a big geopolitical and geo-economic issue,’ said Mr Tverdokhleb.
‘It is thanks to unique scientific data that it has been proven that Russian birch trees absorb no less than the average conventional Canadian birch trees. Just a few years ago, this was not obvious at all. We see a great politicisation of this issue, and that is why we consider those areas of development that are being pursued in the BRICS and SCO platforms to be of critical importance. These are the partners with whom we will be able to build non-politicised sustainable bridges and dialogues, again with a demand for practicality – decarbonisation, energy efficiency,’ said Elena Myakotnikova, Head of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Council for Sustainable Business Development and a member of RUSAL’s Executive Committee.
In addition, objective climate science data is needed for climate risk assessment to calculate potential losses and to predict the climate situation in general. ‘We see a huge potential for increasing funding for climate change adaptation projects, because today the adopted taxonomy contains only transitional projects. And there are not enough mechanisms and data for adaptation projects. In general, scientific data is needed to form criteria. The scientific basis is also used to create green financial instruments,’ said Ekaterina Salugina-Sorokovaya, First Vice President of Gazprombank.
‘This work gives us a good base, a foundation on which we, as a business, are already building our next steps. The triune dialogue between the state, business and science is very important, and Sibur, being in this dialogue, was one of the first companies to support the creation of a carbon polygon, which involved calculations and research for the first stage of the Russian Climate Monitoring System. An important stage in the implementation of forest-climate projects is the formation of a scientifically sound, calculation-supported baseline, which makes it possible to answer the question ‘what would have happened if business had not got involved?’,’ said Tatiana Romanenkova, senior manager of Sibur’s Climate Initiatives and Carbon Management function.
The Russian Climate Monitoring System can be replicated and there is interest in it among developing countries, those that for various reasons cannot afford such a scale of research. Russian scientists are open and engaged in dialogue with colleagues from BRICS and SCO. ‘When creating the Russian Climate Monitoring System, there was a good synergy between the state and science because colleagues taught the authorities to understand the data of the climate agenda correctly. Thanks to this, there is an adaptation plan and this is also one of the results. And, it should be noted that already now the subjects of the Russian Federation have adaptation plans, which will be updated in the next period taking into account the results of the first stage of work and this will have a direct impact on the lives of citizens of the country,’ summarised Pavel Smelov.