XXII International Forum "Ecology of the big city" was held in St. Petersburg

March 22, 2023

On March 22-24, the XXII International Forum „Ecology of the Big City“ was held at the EXPOFORUM CEC in St. Petersburg.

The forum is one of the key ones in Russia in the field of environmental protection and rational nature management as well as equipment, technologies and services. The main goal of the Forum is to promote and introduce in Russia innovative environmental equipment and technologies that contribute to the conservation of natural resources, strengthening environmental safety and improving the quality of life of the population in large cities.

The forum was held with the support of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the Committee for Nature Management, Environmental Protection and Environmental Safety of the Government of St. Petersburg, Roszapovedtsentr of the Russian Federation.

On the sidelines of the Forum, a strategic session was held on the topic „The role of water resources in ensuring energy and environmental security“, in which Sergey Korotkov, Director of the UNIDO CIIC, took part.

The session was moderated by Natalya Sokolova, Head of the Ecology and Environmental Protection section of the Expert Council under the Federation Council Committee on Agrarian and Food Policy and Environmental Management, Head of the Union for Energy and Environmental Security, and Alexander German, Chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources Management, Environmental Protection and Environmental Protection security of St. Petersburg.

The moderator also recalled that on the first day of the forum, an agreement was signed on cooperation between 7 Russian regions for the conservation and restoration of the Baltic water system. Among the participants are St. Petersburg, Leningrad, Vologda, Kaliningrad, Novgorod, Pskov regions and the Republic of Karelia.

Sergey Korotkov said that the UN Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 was released recently. According to the UN, the rate of progress needs to quadruple by 2030, because at current rates, by 2030, 1.6 billion people will not have access to safely managed water services, 2.8 billion people will not have access to sanitation services , 1.9 billion people have basic hand hygiene devices.

UNIDO is making solid efforts to solve the problems. One of the projects is a water management training project in Morocco called H2O Maghreb. The project is running a five-month free training program that prepares young Moroccans for jobs in the industrial and municipal water supply.

Another project, which Sergey Anatolyevich spoke about, was carried out by the UNIDO CIIC jointly with the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation and is called „Detection, evaluation and gradation of water pollution sources of trans-border basins and ecological clean technologies transfer”.

„The project was implemented for the Volga basin. The first component of the project was related to preparatory measures: prioritizing pollution points, assessing its impact on the environment, and studying existing projects to reduce pollution and protect human health. The second component was related to the transfer of environmentally friendly technologies to UNIDO, including the environmental management system, assessment of the possibilities of introducing cleaner production methods, environmental accounting and others.

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