Oldenburg. The Oldenburg Climate Days can be considered a great success. More than 150 participants attended on 23 June in the Alte Fleiwa when the University Society (UGO) celebrated its 50th anniversary with an ambitious conference programme. The 40th anniversary of the Energy Laboratory was also celebrated.

The event was opened by Prof Dr Ralph Bruder, President of Carl von Ossietzky University. He emphasised the enormous importance of the UGO: "The UGO connects us with the region and contributes to the high social relevance of the university. The prizes and scholarships awarded are an important support for the university."

The event began with a welcome address from Lower Saxony's Minister for the Environment and Energy, Olaf Lies. He also emphasised that a university landscape has emerged in the region in recent decades that has no need to shy away from comparison in Lower Saxony.

However, Prof Dr Werner Brinker, Chairman of the Board of UGO, explained that it had been a long road to get there. "In the founding phase, there were initially many reservations in Oldenburg's urban society about the reform university." However, these were gradually overcome. "However, the strong convergence of the university, UGO and the region then produced enormous successes." In this context, Brinker mentioned the numerous institutes that were founded.

Prof Dr Joachim Luther looked back on 40 years of the Energy Laboratory and recalled the goal at the time of developing an energy supply for the Federal Republic of Germany based on renewable sources. This was almost utopian at the time when the university was founded, because the peaceful utilisation of nuclear power seemed to have solved all energy problems

Alongside Prof Luther, another keynote speaker, Prof Hartmut Graßl, described the outsider role of the two scientists at the time. "Prof Luther and I were the two scientists who were closest to nuclear energy," said Graßl.

The participants were particularly impressed by the presentation "Observations in the Arctic" by Dr Marcel Nicolaus from the Alfred Wegener Institute.

On this expedition, he was virtually right at one of the key points of the drastically changing global climate. "We saw how the Arctic sea ice is disappearing. If climate change continues at this rate, the Arctic will be ice-free in summer in a few decades."

The Climate Days also included keynote speeches on the measures needed to mitigate climate change. These came from Dr Daniel Kauer (Head of Strategic Planning at VW AG), Dr Peter Prinz (Vynova Wilhelmshaven GmbH) and Dr Johannes Teyssen (former CEO of EON).

The programme was rounded off with a panel discussion:

Dr Daniel Kauer, Dr Peter Prinz, Dr Johannes Teyssen, Prof. Dr Astrid Nieße (Professor of Digitalised Energy Systems at the University of Oldenburg), Dr Marcel Nicolaus and Irina Lucke (Omexon) took part in this. She has been an offshore expert from the very beginning and was largely responsible for the construction of the "alpa ventus" and "Riffgat" offshore wind farms.

The panel discussion was moderated by Werner Brinker.

Prof. Bruder and Prof. Brinker were in favour of making the Oldenburg Climate Days an annual event.