NIES Side Event
On December 2, 2011, the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) jointly hosted a side event with the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) with the title “Low Carbon Society (LCS) in Asia: from planning to implementation” at The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 7th Session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the parties (CMP7) to the Kyoto Protocol.
What path will Asia take towards the achievement of the target of halving global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050? This side event reported the outcomes of research into how to achieve this goal, as well as the example of Iskandar, Malaysia - where future scenarios and implementation processes are being studied. Based on these reports, the panelists participated in discussions from both academic and policy perspectives (see the event program below for details).
Questions from the floor included those relating to the connection between this initiative and the direction of ongoing intergovernmental negotiations, as well as those on their relationship to other initiatives such as Green Growth. Panelists responded by pointing out to the potential for such a research network to be effectively maintained and to spearhead policy-making and other initiatives even when the political process is stagnant. The approximately 80 participants - including government representatives from Japan and Malaysia – filled the venues and gave their full attention to the engaging discussions during the event.
Program
Chairperson: Junichi FUJINO (NIES)
16:45-16:55 Opening Remarks
Hideaki NAKANE (NIES)
Ir Dr Mohd AZRAII KASIM (UTM)
16:55-17:20 How can research contribute to Asian LCS?
Mikiko KAINUMA(NIES)
Ho CHIN SIONG (UTM)
17:20 -17:45 Role of Implementing Agencies in the Asian LCS Process
Mohamad SA’ELAL (IRDA, Malaysia) Mr. Masayuki KARASAWA (JICA, Japan) (Presentation slides provided in advance)
Yutaka MATSUZAWA (MOE, Japan)
17:45-18:15 Panel Discussion: Challenges towards LCS
Kejun JIANG (Energy Research Institute, China)
P.R. SHUKLA (Indian Institute of Management, India)
Mohamad SA’ELAL (IRDA, Malaysia)
Shuzo NISHIOKA (NIES/IGES, Japan)
Acknowledgements
The contents of this side event are based on Asia LCS Research Project (the “S-6 Project”), under the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund of the Ministry of Environment, Japan (MOEJ), and the Development of LCS Scenarios for Asian Regions Project funded by SATREPS of JST/JICA.
Website of the project: : http://2050.nies.go.jp/index.html