Trianon Dialogue and MGIMO at Russian-French Forum on Clean Technologies

18 November 2020

November 17^th, the Russian-French Forum on Clean Technologies, set up by Metropolis * Nice - Cote d'Azur, the Skolkovo Foundation, the “KseTech” clean technology platform, the Trianon Dialogue and MGIMO, began its work online.

Representatives of some of the largest corporations and start-ups from Russia and France gathered on one platform to discuss best practices in the implementation of clean technologies and review, based on specific examples and business cases, the future directions for industrial development, smart cities, waste recycling and renewable energy sources.

The Vice-Mayor of Nice for International Relations Christiane Amiel and the Chairman of the Skolkovo Foundation Arkady Dvorkovich gave opening speeches at the Forum.

The French Ambassador to Russia Pierre Levy and the Russian Ambassador to France Alexei Meshkov gave a talk about the development of clean technologies and environmentally friendly industries in France and Russia and the state support measures in this area. The ambassadors underlined the role played by Russian-French dialogue structures in the environmental and technological development agenda.

The Co-Chair of the Trianon Dialogue on the French side, Ambassador Pierre Morel welcomed the forum participants, congratulated all sides on setting up such a large-scale Russian-French meeting online and emphasized the fact that the Trianon Dialogue continues to support the active cooperation of companies specialized in new technologies, including within the framework of the Trianon startups project.

The Russian Co-chairman of the Trianon Dialogue, MGIMO Rector, Anatoly Torkunov spoke at the start of the forum.

“I need not repeat that ecology, environmental protection and new 'environmentally friendly' technologies are the central theme of the Trianon Dialogue in 2020, and that we intend to keep this theme as one of the main ones for 2021. I hope many of you have seen the WWF and Trianon Dialogue project presented at the Paris Forum. Through contemporary art, we tried to reveal the problems of environmental protection and expose the new technological reality.

Today's event is a continuation of several overarching themes of the Trianon Dialogue over the past three years!

Firstly, attention is being paid to civic activity in the form of the entrepreneurial activities of young people related to new technologies. Two meetings of Russian and French startups with the business community of the two countries in 2019 and early 2020 revealed a high level of mutual interest, opened a completely new civic dimension of dialogue, which comes to complete the more traditional forms of cooperation in the humanitarian and cultural spheres.

We hope that today's meeting of Russian and French technological leaders of the "green economy" on the breakthrough nature of startups, is a logical follow up to the Trianon meetings on ecosystems.

We have also planned for the spring of 2021 a joint large-scale meeting of startups under the traditional leadership of Euryale Chatelard.

Another line of the Trianon, which is being explored in today's meeting, is the problem of “smart cities”. This theme marked the beginning of the Trianon project: it is symbolic that we held the first events on this issue on the Cote d'Azur, in collaboration with the University of Nice and the Government of Moscow. Through the Russian-French dialogue, the theme of a smart, environmentally friendly city has become the leitmotif of the Moscow Urban Forum, which is being formed and developed together with the Trianon Dialogue.

The third important topic is renewable energy, which is a constant focus for the "Trianon dialogue" and was addressed at the Russian Energy Week, through a number of expert seminars, which were conducted with the support of the members of the Dialogue’s Coordination Council - Patrick Pouyanet and Vladimir Potanin.

You probably know that the two "adult" days of our Forum will be followed by a youth discussion on the third day.

Students show a level of interest in ecology, which goes beyond that of my generation. The most important initiative of this year was our support for the Youth Climate Dialogue, an exceptional meeting that took place at the end of October in St. Petersburg at the Meteorological University. This university has also incorporated the Russian-French Polar Academy. Within the framework of ten Russian grants of the Trianon Dialogue for 2020-2021, the vast majority of projects are related to the involvement of youth in environmental issues. Starting from tomorrow a series of remote meetings dedicated to environmental volunteering and national parks will begin.

I wish the participants of the forum fruitful discussions and success in carrying out their specific projects!"

The Co-chairs of the French-Russian working group on ecology were from the French side Olivier Robinet and from Russian side Nuritdin Inamov. They spoke about state initiatives, touching upon a wide range of areas of bilateral cooperation in the field of ecology.

The work of the forum will continue with discussions in the framework of the sessions "Green Production", "Smart Grids / Smart City / Green Transport", "Renewable Energy Sources / Technologies Using Energy of Oceans, Seas and Rivers", "Waste Management", where representatives of companies and startups will give presentations on their technological solutions and business cases.

The second day of the forum will include a series of B2B meetings and during the third day French startups will hold master classes for Russian students.

* Metropolis (fr. Metropole) - a new form of public authority for organizing the interaction of municipalities