From school climate plans to municipal сlimate plans

On June 21, the Climate Secretariat of the RSEU held a webinar for members of the RSEU - coordinators of SPARE (School project on application of resources and energy) on the development of climate plans at the local level. Coordinators of SPARE from St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region, Arkhangelsk, Kaliningrad, Ural Federal District, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Ugra, Nizhny Novgorod, Bryansk, Irkutsk, Vladivostok took part in the webinar.

The climate plan is a tool with which you can comprehensively review and analyze climate-sensitive aspects of your building/office, district, plan and implement measures to reduce your impact on climate, become more energy efficient, increase the comfort of your living environment and save on payment accounts in the future.

In 2015, Russia, along with all the other countries of the world, signed the Paris International Climate Agreement, which, inter alia, provides for the development of national low-carbon development strategies and plans, as well as national plans for adaptation to the effects of climate change. But while the climatic actions of the national level go on at a slow pace, actions at the regional and local levels take on special significance.

School climate plans for the second year are being developed in all the listed participating regions of the webinar. At the webinar, the advantages and disadvantages of the first plans developed were discussed and conclusions were drawn on how to improve the work. Among the regional school climate plans there are plans that are already being improved for the second year - the Eco Council was created at the school, monitoring of input measures is being carried out and planning for the next year is improved and in the long term - replacement of light bulbs with LED lights, insulation of windows, walls, roofs, installation of motion sensors, aerators for faucets - are just some of the measures that schools introduce or are about to introduce. The climate plan necessarily takes into account how much carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced with the introduction of one or another solution, and also calculates the economic effect.

An important aspect of the school’s climate plan is the introduction of resource conservation measures — environmentally friendly procurement and waste management. In some climate plans this toplic already included. The production of any goods requires electricity, which is produced by burning fossil fuels - natural gas, oil, coal, and is accompanied by carbon dioxide emissions. It is important to minimize the use of primary resources, discard one-time things, reuse resources, and hand over waste for recycling. Particularly relevant is the issue of waste management due to the fact that from January 1, 2019, the so-called “waste reform” began to operate in Russia, providing for the development of separate waste collection.

The next step is to involve municipalities in the development and implementation of climate plans. Schools are located on the territory of municipalities; the more actors involved in the development of the climate planes, the more productive the work will be. Coordinators - participants of the webinar discussed ways to improve work on the climate plans: how to develop the direction of resource conservation, attract new schools, new partners. The next SPARE-competition of 2019-2020 school year will start in September, any Russian school can participate.