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Adviser to the President, Special Presidential Representative on Climate Issues Ruslan Edelgeriyev chaired an expanded meeting of the interagency scientific expert council on Global Climate and Rational Use of Natural Resources: Zero Emission and Zero Degradation of Russia’s Soil (Agriculture and Forestry) at the Dokuchayev Soil Science Institute.

The second volume of the National Report Global Climate and Soil Mantle of Russia: Desertification and Degradation of Lands and Institutional, Infrastructural and Technological Measures of Adaptation (Agriculture and Forestry) was presented at the meeting.

Ruslan Edelgeriyev called the release of the second volume of the National Report “an important and significant event in the sphere of science and economic management in the face of natural, climatic and socioeconomic challenges.” The volume is dedicated to “problems of desertification, degradation of lands and acute social and demographic collisions and economic depressions in several regions of Russia, and sets out an action plan and technologies used to prevent and eliminate the problems.”

Mr Edelgeriyev noted that the second volume was the result of “joint work of famous scientists, federal executive officials and the expert group of the interagency working group on climate issues and sustainable development under the Presidential Executive Office.”

The report is a “highly professional response to the tasks of implementing sustainable development goals, including the preservation and strengthening of existing institutes and international agreements lying at the core of national action plans in accordance with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement and the Convention to Combat Desertification.”

Ruslan Edelgeriyev believes that “it is necessary to prepare national reports on a regular basis on the current state of soil in Russia and the influence on greenhouse gas emissions.” The publication of the second volume is important, because “the problem of desertification and degradation of lands becomes especially important due to extreme climate phenomena and food safety problems.”

The report includes “a list of large areas and advanced practices as well as fundamental and applied science and research priorities, because the full integration of the Russian economy in the global trends of the use of natural resources is impossible without scientific breakthroughs,” Mr Edelgeriyev noted.

He stressed that “this document will be interesting to climate and ecology experts, managers at different levels in agriculture and forestry, as well as scientists, university professors, postgraduate and undergraduate students.”

The theme of the next volume of the national report was also discussed at the meeting. Ruslan Edelgeriyev believes it should be dedicated to the comprehensive analysis of drought.