On June 3, honored guests – European and Kazakhstani experts in the field of energy were welcomed at Karaganda Industrial University. Here in the framework of the campaign "European Union – Kazakhstan: The Days of Sustainable Energy" hosted the second interregional forum of environmental initiatives "SAF AUA", organized jointly by the Association "ECOJER" and the EU-funded project "Sustainable Energy Links in Central Asia (SECCA)" with the support of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Kazakhstan. EU representatives organized lectures on sustainable energy for students and teachers of the university.
- Today, the main thing is not how technologies change, but how our mentality and our perception of environmental problems change, - said Paata Janelidze, head of the group of experts in the field of energy, SECCA. – Once it seemed to us that global climate change was still far away. Firstly, there was no clear scientifically sound understanding of what was causing the warming. It is clear that these were the consequences of human activity, but how to measure it?! There was also no idea where the threshold for safe climate change was, when living organisms would no longer be able to adapt to these changes. But all this was constantly changing in the direction of worsening our expectations. At first it was said that 2 degrees would be an increase in temperature until 2060 and it is safe. Now we say that it is one and a half degrees. At first, it was said that the content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is safe at the level of 450 parts per million molecules of dry air. Now it is said that by 2050 we should reduce this concentration by 45-70%.
To achieve this goal, experts say, the whole world already needs to end dependence on fossil fuels and invest in alternative energy sources that are clean.
- Here we can focus on the experience of European countries, where energy efficiency has become one of the key elements of policy and is already considered as an energy source. That is, we need to understand how something can be used more effectively," explained Ilse Purinya, a key expert in the field of energy sector management, SECCA.
It is worth noting that the campaign "European Union – Kazakhstan: The Sustainable Energy Days are part of the broader European Union–Central Asia campaign.: Days of Sustainable Energy". Its purpose is to raise awareness among national stakeholders and the public in the Central Asian region about the importance, benefits and accessibility of sustainable energy, as well as the relationship between energy and climate change. The campaign is also a key component of the European Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW), the largest annual event dedicated to renewable energy and energy efficiency in Europe, initiated by the European Commission in 2007. The campaign is held annually in Central Asian countries within the framework of the EU-funded project "Sustainable Energy Links in Central Asia (SECCA)".
