TYUMEN, August 30. /TASS/. The opening of the carbon test site took place at Tyumen State University, a TASS correspondent reports.

The carbon test site is a territory with a unique ecosystem for the development and testing of technologies for remote and ground control of greenhouse gas emissions and other parameters significant for climate change in forest zones and agricultural lands.

“Of course, we will not create a national monitoring network with the help of seven test sites - a network for monitoring climatic active gases. However, on the basis of the first seven test sites we will be able to begin to form the scientific basis for such monitoring. <…> Today we have the first launch - West Siberian scientific and educational center, the Tyumen region and Tyumen State University will present the first test site, six more territorial units are next in line," said Russia's Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov at the opening of the facility.

He added that moreover, the ministry is already considering 15 applications from 15 Russian regions to create new landfills.

Aide to the Russian President Andrei Fursenko added at the opening that several more test sites are planned to be opened in 2021. "I really hope that this year we will launch several more [test sites]. But the most important thing is not the launch, <...> but the exact way they will work in normal mode. In this regard, we pin hopes, first of all, on the university, which became the base organization for the operation of the test site, on the Tyumen region administration and on our business partners," Fursenko said.  

Educational programs

According to rector of Tyumen State University Ivan Romanchuk, currently the university is launching four educational programs to train personnel for carbon test sites and expects to subsequently increase this list.

"We regard the carbon test site as <...> an educational center. And today we are announcing a whole line of new educational programs, such as, for example, the international master's program in regenerative land use, which was created within the framework of a grant from the European Union," said Romanchuk.

In an interview with TASS, the rector added that one of the new areas of training will be a joint master's program with Higher School of Economics. The university will also launch additional education programs and a series of educational programs for schoolchildren.

About carbon test sites in Russia

The carbon test site of Tyumen State University is the only range created as part of the top-notch Scientific and Educational Center. It will ensure coordination for a network of similar ranges of the West Siberian Interregional research center, which will cover the territory from the forest steppe to the Arctic tundra. In addition to monitoring greenhouse gas emissions, technologies for reducing carbon amount in the atmosphere (sequestration of carbon) and regenerative agriculture will be tested at the carbon test site. 

The first carbon test site was opened in the Kaluga region in September 2020. Following that, seven pilot regions were chosen where similar test sites will be created: Chechnya, Krasnodar Region, Kaliningrad, Novosibirsk, Sakhalin, Sverdlovsk and Tyumen regions. In March, Russia's Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov, during a meeting with Vladimir Putin announced that Russia plans to increase to several dozen the number of test sites intended for calculating the ability of the environment to absorb carbon from the atmosphere.