2012-11-27

First bulletin from the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) delegation at the COP18/CMP8 climate change conference, Doha, Qatar

Assemblage of conference participants

The 18th Conference of the Parties (COP18) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 8th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the parties (CMP8) to the Kyoto Protocol began on November 26 (Monday), 2012. For the two weeks following this day, the various agendas surrounding climate change will be discussed by governmental parties and delegates from each participant country in Doha, Qatar.

The National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) will maintain a manned exhibition booth over this period in order to give an account of its latest research activities - with an emphasis on our extensive global warming and climate change related research - to participants gathered at the venue from throughout the world.

Having overcome initial technical issues particular to the conference venue, we have now set up two monitors at our booth where we are showing videos which depict the latest GHG monitoring data obtained by the Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) and results of future climate simulations using the global climate model MIROC5. We are making use of this opportunity to present an overview of NIES and distribute a compact disc to all persons visiting our booth, as well as fielding their questions. The disc which we are distributing contains reports summarizing research outcomes (totaling over 30 such reports) from the broad scope of research being conducted at NIES – and with an emphasis on scenario research for low carbon society in Asia using the Asian Integrated Model (AIM).

Visitors to the NIES exhibition booth at the conference venue

We entertained around 100 visitors to the NIES booth on November 29 (Monday), the first day of the conference. Many of these were from governmental parties from Asian and African nations. These expressed a particular interest in our booth and institute due to the global and regional nature of NIES activities, which have the potential to be relevant to their respective regions. In addition, researchers from the Middle East, Europe and the US asked pointed questions at our booth, and expectations on opportunities to cultivate new networks with informational exchange on the research level were also expressed. We can also expect that NIES will find itself on national television within Qatar, as a detailed recording was taken of posters at the NIES booth by a camera crew from a Qatari television station.

Participants from governments and international bodies from throughout the globe as well as NGOs are now gathered at the spacious, modern and well appointed facilities of the conference venue. This represents a unique opportunity - and we intend to take full advantage of this so that we might appeal to this diverse array of participants on the research activities of NIES.