Oldenburg. The Oldenburg Climate Symposium can be regarded as a great success. More than 150 participants gathered at the Alte Fleiwa on 23 June, when the University Society (UGO) celebrated its 50th anniversary with a wide-ranging programme of events. The 40th anniversary of the Energy Laboratory was also marked.

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 helps ensure the university’s high social relevance. The prizes and scholarships awarded provide vital support for the university.”

The event began with a welcome address by Olaf Lies, Lower Saxony’s Minister for the Environment and Energy. He, too, made it clear that, over the past decades, a higher education landscape has emerged in the region that is second to none in Lower Saxony.

However, Prof. Dr Werner Brinker, Chairman of the UGO’s Executive Board, explained that it had been a long road to get to this point. “During the founding phase, there were initially many reservations within Oldenburg’s local community regarding the reform university.” However, these were gradually overcome. “The strong collaboration between the university, UGO and the region then led to enormous successes.” In this context, Brinker cited the establishment of numerous institutes.

Prof. Dr Joachim Luther looked back on 40 years of the Energy Laboratory and recalled the goal at the time: to develop an energy supply for the Federal Republic of Germany based on renewable sources. This had seemed nothing short of utopian at the time the university was founded, because the peaceful use of nuclear power appeared to have solved all energy problems.

Alongside Prof. Luther, another keynote speaker, Prof. Hartmut Graßl, described the role of the two scientists as outsiders at the time. “Prof. Luther and I were the two scientists who were least involved in nuclear energy,” said Graßl.

The participants were particularly impressed by the lecture ‘Observations in the Arctic’ by Dr Marcel Nicolaus from the Alfred Wegener Institute.

On this expedition, he was, so to speak, right at the heart of one of the key areas affected by the drastically changing global climate. “We have seen how the Arctic sea ice is disappearing. If climate change continues at this rate, the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within a few decades.”

Other highlights of the Climate Symposium included keynote speeches on the measures needed to mitigate climate change. These were delivered by 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:

Participants included: 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). She is a pioneer in the offshore sector and played a key role in the construction of the “alpa ventus” and “Riffgat” offshore wind farms.

The panel discussion was moderated by Werner Brinker.

Prof. Bruder and Prof. Brinker expressed their view that the Oldenburg Climate Symposium should now become an annual event.