Climate agenda in the southern region of Russia: the view of the agrarian university students

. The article presents the results of a brief theoretical review of approaches to the study of the climate agenda and an empirical study of the attitude of students of the Agrarian University to climate change issues. A brief review of scientific publications from the science-intensive Scopus database showed the main directions of research of the subject field in the sphere of social dimensions, methodology, theory and methods of obtaining empirical material. We have developed a toolkit for conducting a survey in the youth student environment of the Agrarian University; it is based on the analysis of the obtained theoretical generalizations. 497 respondents from full-time students of Stavropol State Agrarian University took part in the survey (Stavropol, Russia). Methodological recommendations have been developed for improving educational programs of higher agricultural education in the field of climate literacy – the ability to formulate, apply and interpret climate knowledge in professional activities; understanding the direction of climate change and the corresponding transformations of professional activity in the agricultural sector of the South of Russia (Stavropol Krai, Russia). Attracting the attention and involvement of future agricultural specialists in the discussion track of the development of the climate agenda is an important factor of professional competence.


Introduction
The issues of climate change in the current perspective will increasingly concern humanity in connection with the obvious problems that come into the lives and professional activities of people in completely different regions of the world. The relevance of the attitude to the climate agenda among students, who will soon join the ranks of agricultural workers, is increasing, since the professional activity of this category of workers has a high level of dependence on natural and climatic conditions affecting both the production process itself and its results. Understanding this level of dependence, willingness to work in increasingly complex conditions, evaluate and take targeted actions to transform production processes is an important task in the training of future specialists in the agricultural sector.
Climate competence, as a type of professional competence of a future specialist in the agricultural sector, is important for professional socialization, ethics and social responsibility in agricultural production. The purpose of our study was to determine the attitude of the students of the Agrarian University to climate change issues and to reflect on the actions of state and regional authorities regarding climate threats.
The relevance of our research is confirmed in a number of publications that have been submitted for discussion by the scientific community in recent years. Thus, the authors of the article Marie Hrabanski, Jean François Le Coq, formulating the relevance of their research, draw public attention to the fact that agricultural issues were practically absent in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted in 1992 [1]. At the same time, in recent years, 3 concepts have appeared on the climate agenda: "climate-optimized agriculture", "agroecology" and "natural solutions", which, according to the authors of the article, are designed to contribute to the adaptation of agriculture and mitigation of the effects of climate change. For our research, it is important to understand the need to include future agricultural specialists in the discussion on the impact of climate on production processes in agriculture and the formation of their climatic competence.
Climate change is important for workers whose activities take place not indoors, but outdoors. The authors of the article David Dodman, Alice Sverdlik, Shabnam Verma analyze studies conducted in three cities of India and Zimbabwe [2]. In their opinion, the direct impact of climate change leads to substandard living conditions and increases the importance of occupational health and safety measures. Thus, it is important for the training of future specialists in the agricultural sector to take into account the specifics of the deterioration of climatic conditions in the subject areas of occupational health and safety. In this regard, an important aspect is the preservation of the health of workers, and work on solutions to social problems of individual groups of the population [3,4].
To perform such multidirectional tasks, it is important to equip the future specialist of the agricultural sector with a real methodology that allows him/her/them to make effective decisions and take into account many factors of the influence of the climate agenda on professional activity. Here, in the discussion of the scientific community, we see the proposal of a transdisciplinary approach to the development of effective solutions related to climate change and its impact on the current professional activities of various categories of workers in agriculture [5]. The transdisciplinary approach is the scientific basis for the sustainable development of territories, including the agricultural sector, in terms of understanding the processes of climate change and their impact on production processes. In fact, this is due to the involvement in the process of studying the impact of climate change of different categories of participants in the agricultural complex at all stagesfrom setting the research goal to interpreting its results.
The climate agenda is important in spatial planning. The authors of the article Georgina Cundill, Chandni Singh, Amina Maharjan legitimately raise the question of the economic aspect of intra-country migration of the population in connection with the increasing unfavourable climatic conditions [6]. In their opinion, migrants are still not given due attention when planning economic development, adaptation to climate change and spatial placement of production. Thus, the issues of spatial distribution of production and labour have a significant dependence on unfavourable climatic conditions. And future specialists in the agricultural sector should be sufficiently informed about the need to take into account the dynamics of climate change when planning the spatial location of production and labour. This confirms the relevance of the study of the attitude of students of the Agrarian University to the climate agenda.
Research in the field of climate change logically leads to the need to conceptualize (clarify) the concept of climate security. This is stated in the article by the author Christo Odeyemi [7]. The emergence of new trends in scientific discourse presupposes the timely development of the theoretical base of the subject area, in particular, the concept of "climate security". This conclusion of the author confirms the importance of studying the opinions of students and identifying gaps in their theoretical training related to ensuring climate security in agricultural production.
A brief review of publications covering the subject area "attitude to the climate agenda" shows the relevant aspects of modern scientific discourse: significant changes in natural and climatic conditions; the need to conceptualize the theoretical concept of "climate security"; adaptation of production, including agricultural, to climate change and its spatial location; climatic competence of agricultural production specialists [8,9,10]. The obtained theoretical generalizations allow us to formulate significant provisions of the program and research tools the study of the attitude of students of the Agrarian University to climate change issues and the assessment of actions of state and regional authorities regarding climate threats [11,12].

Materials and methods
A study of the attitude of young people studying at higher agricultural education programs was conducted in the South of Russia (Stavropol Krai, Russia) by a handout questionnaire in February 2023. A total of 497 respondents from full-time students of Stavropol State Agrarian University (Stavropol, Russia) took part in the survey. The sampling error in the implementation of the random selection method is 2%. In the questionnaire, 20 meaningful indicators reveal the opinion of the survey participants about the "climate agenda": awareness of the relevance of the climate agenda; own vision of climate change in the region of residence; assessment of the environmental situation in the region and the locality; assessment of the actions of state and regional authorities in the field of ecology and climate change.

Results and discussion
We present the results of the survey, in which the student youth from among the representatives of higher agricultural education expressed their opinion on climate change as an important part of the environmental situation, gave their assessment of the actions of state and regional authorities regarding climate threats.
According to 39.2% of the survey participants, climate change will bring more losses than benefits. On the contrary, 21.7% of respondents indicated the positive impact of climate change. 21.7% of respondents expressed an opinion about the absence of any influence. And 17.4% of respondents found it difficult to formulate their position on this issue. Thus, it can be said that only a small proportion of students of higher agricultural education does not clearly define their position on the topical issue of assessing the impact of climate change on the regional socio-economic situation.
Assessing the long-term climatic situation in the region (Stavropol Krai, Russia), the survey participants noted significant changes in the following areas: • the air temperature characteristic of the time of year (32.6% of respondents); • changes in the precipitation regime (28.3% of respondents); • number of sunny days (8.7% of respondents); • frequency of natural hazards (4.3% of respondents). The remaining 32.6% of the survey participants indicated the absence of any significant changes (15.2%) or found it difficult to give a definite answer (17.4%).
Representatives of the student youth of the Russian system of higher agricultural education express a high level of concern about the impact of climate change on the lives of people in the region and the world. The data is presented in the table 1. Respondents are most concerned about the negative impact on people's lives in other regions of Russia and the world. The South of Russia, with an obvious change in the air temperature characteristic of the time of year, remains a relatively favourable territory for the population to live and economic development.
About a third of the survey participants (34.8%) believe that the state authorities should give priority to the climate agenda in their work, and almost half (52.2%) note that attention should be at the level of other major issues. Thus, we see the high importance of the subject area of our research in the assessments of respondentsrepresentatives of the students of the higher agricultural education system of Russia.
According to the estimates of future employees of the agro-industrial complex of Russia, the state should take measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions -58.7% of respondents said "yes" and 34.8% of respondents said "rather yes".
Information support is an important component of the state policy in the field of climate change control and environmental protection. According to 28.3% of the survey participants, it should be significantly improved.
The majority of respondents (71.8%) believe that the problem of climate change should be solved at the international level, combining the efforts of all countries.
During the study, representatives of the students of higher agricultural education had the opportunity to give their own assessment of the environmental situation in the region and in the locality of residence. The data of the comparative analysis of the opinions expressed by the survey participants are presented in the table 2. In general, respondents gave a positive assessment of the environmental situation in the locality of residence ("very good" and -10.9%, "good" -34.8%), and continued positive dynamics (table 2). At the same time, we see in the data in table 2 a high proportion of respondents who found it difficult to give a definite answer in assessing changes in the environmental situation in the region, which once again shows the relevance of improving information support for state and regional environmental policy.
Ranking of environmental problems that survey participants see in the region shows that the TOP 5 are: high level of waste accumulation (39.1%); pollution of water resources (39.1%); air pollution (30.4%); poor condition of flora and fauna (21.7%); poor condition of forests (13.1%). The full ranking of environmental problems is presented in the table 3. In order to reduce the negative impact on the environment, respondents show a high level of readiness to use "green technologies": they are ready if it does not increase their costs (63.1%); they are ready even if it increases costs (8.7%). 21.7% are not ready to switch to "green technologies" and 6.5% found it difficult to give a definite answer. The distribution of answers to this question shows the personal readiness of future agricultural workers to promote "green technologies". If such competencies are not formed at the ideological level, respectively, they will not be implemented in professional activity [13,14]. Thus, we see an area for improving the content of professional training of students in the system of higher agricultural education.

Conclusion
The conducted research allows us to draw a number of conclusions: various aspects of the climate agenda are highly relevant in modern scientific discourse and are reflected in the publications of the science-intensive Scopus database [15,16,17,18]; the subject area of the "climate agenda" is associated with such important aspects for agricultural production as "climate security", "climate competence of specialist-agrarians", adaptation of agricultural production to climate change [19,20,21]; for the survey participants, the topic of the study is relevant; in general, the respondents assess the region of residence and the locality more positively in terms of climate and environmental situation compared to other regions and the world; future agricultural specialists propose to develop information support for state and regional policy in the field of climate change control and environmental situation; graduates of higher agricultural education programs mostly believe that the issues of "the climate agenda" should be solved on the scale of the world community.
Based on the results of the study, we developed methodological recommendations for improving educational programs of higher agricultural education in the field of climate literacythe ability to formulate, apply and interpret climate knowledge in professional activities; understanding the direction of climate change and the corresponding transformations of professional activity in the agricultural sector of southern Russia. Attracting the attention and involvement of future agricultural specialists in the discussion track of the development of the climate agenda is an important factor of professional competence.