International online seminar

On October 6, 2020, by the initiative of rector, academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Yuriy Tunytsia, an international scientific seminar was held at the Ukrainian National Forestry University (UNFU) in cooperation with the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences and the International Institute-Association of Regional Ecological Problems in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals for 2016-2030, of the Paris Climate Agreement 2015 and the Transition Strategy of the Alternative Energy Sources. The seminar aimed to discuss the following main issues:

• impacts of underwater gas pipelines on the environment, society and economy;
• preconditions and prospects of development of a comprehensive integrated and transparent assessment of the impact of gas pipelines on the environment on basis of international environmental law and a broad public consensus outside the influence of political preferences;
• expansion of the international research consortium established during the first seminar in 2019 by the signatories of the Kyiv Communiqué and outlining the strategy for further interdisciplinary research on the impacts and risks of the gas pipelines;
• future activities for development of a system of measures and instruments for environmental policy (pro-active, preventive and compensatory) based on the principles of ecological economics and sustainable development;
• scientific publications, press releases and other information materials based on the results of the seminar;
• dissemination of the results of seminar taking into account the peculiarities on national and international levels.

Participants of the seminar - experts in ecological law and ecological economics, representatives of universities, research institutes and other stakeholders, as well as undergraduate students.

By the results of the seminar, Baltic Communiqué was adopted and it was underlined a general need of revision of the approaches and current practices of large-scale projects, that create various negative effects and the need for the formation of an international research consortium for the development of detailed programs of interdisciplinary researches of influence of gas pipelines on the environment, human health, energy security, economic stability, and social welfare.