Opening the event, Alexander Shpakovsky, Director of the Informational and Educational Institution “Actual Concept”, noted that most people have the wrong idea of what global warming is: “only” melting of glaciers and flooding of some areas close to the ocean. Many people think that global warming will not affect the countries located far from the “big water”. However, this is not entirely true. Around the world, natural systems are unbalanced, which leads to a change in precipitation regime, temperature anomalies and an increase in the frequency of natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods and droughts. This, in turn, leads to a reduction in the volumes of fresh water, as well as the loss of biodiversity of our planet.
Already today, experts have noted obvious economic damage from climate change in Belarus - an increase in the duration of droughty periods affects crop yields, road surfaces and buildings are destroyed due to frequent and sudden temperature changes.
The Republic of Belarus was one of the first to ratify the 2015 Paris Agreement, which regulates measures to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Our country already has a clear plan of action: to use energy resources rationally and to develop renewable, including carbon-free sources of generation.
According to the Director of the Department of Energy Efficiency of Gosstandart Mikhail Malashenko, the largest consumers of energy in the republic are industry and households. In this regard, our main task in the near future is to find ways to increase energy efficiency in these areas, which are an important part of our economy. Also focusing on the experience of other countries, we are working to use renewable and carbon-free energy sources that can replace a significant share of energy resources in the country's energy balance.
According to Sergei Greben, Head of the Department of Energy Efficiency, Ecology and Science of the Ministry of Energy, in Belarus, over the past two years the installed electrical capacity of renewable energy installations has almost doubled and amounts to 390.9 MW. According to the expert, such an intensive development of “green generation” is due to the guaranteed purchase of all electricity produced by renewable energy installations at high tariffs and, as a result, the investment attractiveness of such projects due to their short payback period.
Nowadays, the “green square” energy development concept is gaining popularity in the world - it is a combination of solar, wind, water and atom energy. In Belarus, all these types of generation are represented and favorable conditions have been created for their development, both from the legislative and the economic side. However, experts note that now the sun, water and wind simply cannot replace the entire generation that we get from hydrocarbons.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) states that nuclear power is necessary for decarbonization. According to their estimates, on a global scale, it is necessary to connect at least 20 GW of new nuclear facilities per year to achieve the objectives of Paris Agreement.
“Belarusian NPP is an important project of “green energy”. Commossioning the nuclear power plant will make a major contribution to the environmental component - reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 10 million tons annually will diversify the structure of the country's fuel and energy balance and replace up to 5 billion cubic meters of gas, reducing the proportion of gas in energy production from 95% to 60%. In addition, this will create about 2,400 new jobs directly at the plant and additionally in the organizations that will serve it,” said Vasily Polyukhovich, Director of the Department of Nuclear Energy of the Ministry of Energy.
Summing up the event, the Deputy Director for General Issues of Belarusian Representative Office of JSC IC ASE Viktor Brich said: “Today we discussed and heard the possibilities of various types of generation for reducing CO2 production. And, I think that we all agree that it is necessary not to choose between different types of energy, but to form an effective balance of different types of carbon-free generation. Of course, each country will have its own unique “green square” in view of its economic and social needs and climatic conditions”.
Viktor Britsch also noted that if you count all nuclear power plants of Russian design in the world by 2030, then the volume of prevented emissions will be 2.4 billion tons of CO2 annually, which corresponds to 80% of the annual emissions of the entire global fleet of vehicles. Speaking figuratively, atomic energy can become “lungs for the planet”, which will allow it to breathe clean air.
The final chord of the event was the screening of the first film from the WildEdens documentary cycle. The project was initiated by Rosatom State Corporation in 2018 for broadcast on the NationalGeographic channel. The goal of the project is to attract global attention to the problem of global climate change. The project is based on filming a series of full-length documentaries about unique places untouched by humans, populated by animals and plants that are endangered due to global climate change, while carbon-free atomic energy can play a key role in solving this problem.
The WildEdens documentary film cycle includes three films: WildEdens: Russia, WildEdens: Turkey, and WildEdens: SouthAsia. The first film WildEdens: Russia is devoted to the animal world of Russia and was made in such harsh and remote places as the Altai Mountains, the Amur Region, the Kamchatka Peninsula, Siberia, the Yamal Peninsula and the Arctic. The first two films of the WildEdens documentary series have already been shown in 155 countries with an audience of more than 660 million people. In the near future, the release of the WildEdens: SouthAsia series is expected. The possibility of continuing this project in other regions of the world is also being considered.
