Maxim Upilkov and Dariya Kozhakhmetova  recently won third place in a competition organized by school #25 in Astana. Under the supervision of their physics teacher, Maxim and Dariya compared energy efficiency of their homes and other residential buildings, and quantified the cost-saving benefits of upgrading to smart energy.

“We’d never thought that energy efficiency could be such an interesting niche for research,” shared Maxim and Dariya.  “Not to mention, it’s given us an incentive to make a difference in our surroundings. We hope that this project grows into something bigger in our lives and, maybe, we’ll work in areas related to energy-efficiency in the future.”

The competition was organised as part of a broader initiative to make Maxim and Dariya’s school more energy-efficient. Until recently, Maxim and Dariya’s school has faced challenges in keeping its staff and students warm, which created unfavourable conditions for learning. As a result, the staff and students have had to improvise quick-fix solutions to keep warm, such as applying paper tape to windows.

That changed when School 25 was recently chosen as a pilot school for a new energy initiative, launched across Kazakhstan by UNDP and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Many changes have been made in the school, including the installation of energy-saving windows, a weather-dependent automated heating system, and balancing valves to ensure even distribution of heat throughout the building.

“Our students are now able to focus on their lessons, we have reduced our heat losses and our utility costs have gone down in 2015,” said Sairan Gajsina, the principal of the school #25. “The changes create environmental benefits, too, as we have significantly reduced our greenhouse gas emissions. This makes us proud.”

Energy issues have also been integrated into the school’s curriculum. The school administration is making efforts to ensure both teachers and students better understand the relevance of energy efficiency in their lives.

“Economic benefits from the changes are obvious, but what really encourages me is the new opportunities we have been able to create for learning. We look forward to seeing this model replicated throughout educational institutions in Astana and the rest of Kazakhstan.”

UNDP in Kazakhstan is currently piloting the initiative in two schools in Aktau and Kyzylorda. Once the piloting is completed, there are plans to  take stock of lessons learned and apply the initiative in other schools throughout Kazakhstan.

Sourse: www.kz.undp.org

First Vice Prime Minister noted that it is very important that China has decided to switch to organic products and expects such products from Kazakhstan.

“They oriented their business and people to Kazakhstan. We need only take advantage of it. They say that we will buy everything: grain, meat, and honey, and vegetable oils, and dairy products. Moreover, they say that they will invest in Kazakhstan, establish joint ventures and jobs, and pay taxes. We need to accept it and create the necessary conditions for such work,” concluded B.Sagintayev.

Source: bnews.kz

ASTANA. KAZINFORM – 11 Industrialization Map projects totaling KZT 25 bln will be launched in Pavlodar region this year, Governor of the region Kanat Bozumbayev told at the CCS media briefing today, the Primeminister.kz informs.

“We plan to launch 11 projects amounting to KZT 25 bln this year. It will also allow to create about 600 new jobs,” K. Bozumbayev told.

“I’d also like to note that we implement the order of the President on establishment of additional enterprises within big companies. For example, in several days we will open a greenhouse for growing roses. The capacity of the greenhouse is 7 million roses a years,” he informed.

According to him, the greenhouse is located near the GRES-1, which will be providing the heating energy to the greenhouse.

ASTANA. KAZINFORM – Scientists at the Na­tion­al Ocean­ic and At­mo­spher­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and NASA have announced that 2015 was the hottest year, by far, since record keeping began in 1880.

The NOAA reports that average temperature across terrestrial and ocean surfaces was 1.62°F (0.90°C) above the 20th century average.

The globally-averaged land-only surface temperature was 2.39°F (1.33°C) above, and sea surface temperature were 1.33°F (0.74°C) above the average.

Both numbers are the highest in 136 years of record keeping, and by the highest margins. The five highest temperatures for any month on record all occurred in 2015.

Previously, 2014 was the hottest year on record, and now nine out of ten years with highest temperatures have occurred since 2000; 1998 rounding out the group. This leads scientists to believe that the trend will continue.

A National Climate Assessment study of tree rings, ice cores, and corals showed that temperatures over the last several decades are “clearly unusual,” and warmer than any time in the last 1300 years, “or longer.”

Currently, President Barack Obama has been making efforts to counter climate change, including signing a pact with other countries in Paris recently in a landmark agreement to work to mitigate the causes of climate change and the effects of global warming.

“But even if the plan­et wasn’t at stake; even if 2014 wasn’t the warmest year on re­cord - un­til 2015 turned out even hot­ter - why would we want to pass up the chance for Amer­ic­an busi­nesses to pro­duce and sell the en­ergy of the fu­ture?” Obama said in his State of the Union address.

Kazinform refers to Trend.az

ASTANA. KAZINFORM – Overturned fishing skiffs lie abandoned on the shores of what was Bolivia’s second-largest lake. Beetles dine on bird carcasses and gulls fight for scraps under a glaring sun in what marshes remain.

Lake Poopó was officially declared evaporated in December. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people have lost their livelihoods and gone.

High on Bolivia’s semi-arid Andean plains at 3,700 metres (more than 12,000 feet) and long subject to climatic whims, the shallow saline lake has essentially dried up before only to rebound to twice the area of Los Angeles.

But recovery may no longer be possible, scientists say.

“This is a picture of the future of climate change,” says Dirk Hoffman, a German glaciologist who studies how rising temperatures from the burning of fossil fuels has accelerated glacial melting in Bolivia.

As Andean glaciers disappear, so do the sources of Poopó’s water. But other factors are in play in the demise of Bolivia’s second-largest body of water behind Lake Titicaca.

Drought caused by the recurrent El Niño meteorological phenomenon is considered the main driver. Authorities say another factor is the diversion of water from Poopo’s tributaries, mostly for mining but also for agriculture.

More than 100 families have sold their sheep, llamas and alpaca, set aside their fishing nets and quit the former lakeside village of Untavi over the past three years, draining it of well over half its population. Only the elderly remain.

“There’s no future here,” says 29-year-old Juvenal Gutierrez, who moved to a nearby town where he has taken a job as a motorcycle taxi driver.

Record-keeping on the lake’s history goes back only a century, and there is no good tally of the people displaced by its disappearance. At least 3,250 people have received humanitarian aid, the governor’s office says.

Poopo is now down to 2% of its former water level, regional governor Victor Hugo Vasquez calculates. Its maximum depth once reached five metres (16ft). Field biologists say 75 species of birds are gone from the lake.

While Poopó has suffered El Niño-fuelled droughts for millennia, its fragile ecosystem has experienced unprecedented stress in the past three decades. Temperatures have risen by about 1 degree Celsius while mining activity has pinched the flow of tributaries, increasing sediment.

Florida Institute of Technology biologist Mark B. Bush says the long-term trend of warming and drying threatens the entire Andean highlands.

A 2010 study he co-wrote for the journal Global Change Biology said Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, could face catastrophic drought this century. It predicted “inhospitable arid climates” would lessen available food and water this century for the more than 3 million inhabitants of Bolivia’s highlands.

A study by the German consortium Gitec-Cobodes determined that Poopó received 161bn fewer litres of water in 2013 than required to maintain equilibrium.

“Irreversible changes in ecosystems could occur, causing massive emigration and greater conflicts,” said the study commissioned by Bolivia’s government.

The head of a local citizens’ group that tried to save Poopó, Angel Flores, says authorities ignored warnings. “Something could have been done to prevent the disaster. Mining companies have been diverting water since 1982,” he says.

President Evo Morales has sought to deflect criticism he bears some responsibility, suggesting Poopó could come back.

“My father told me about crossing the lake on a bicycle once when it dried up,” he said in December after returning from the UN-sponsored climate conference in Paris.

Environmentalists and local activists say the government mismanaged fragile water resources and ignored rampant pollution from mining, Bolivia’s second export earner after natural gas. More than 100 mines are upstream and Huanuni, Bolivia’s biggest state-owned tin mine, was among those dumping untreated tailings into Poopó’s tributaries.

After thousands of fish died in late 2014, the Universidad Tecnica in the nearby state capital of Oruro found Poopó had unsafe levels of heavy metals, including cadmium and lead.

The president of Bolivia’s National Chamber of Mining, Saturnino Ramos, said any blame by the industry was “insignificant compared to climate change.” He said most of the sediment shallowing Poopo’s tributaries was natural, not from mining.

In hopes of bringing it back, Morales’ government has asked the European Union for $140m for water treatment plants for the Poopó watershed and to dredge tributaries led by the Desaguadero, which flows from Lake Titicaca.

But critics say it may be too late.

“I don’t think we’ll be seeing the azure mirror of Poopó again,” said Milton Perez, a Universidad Tecnica researcher. “I think we’ve lost it.”