13 October 2014

Exploring future collaboration with the Japanese research community - seminar

The Japan Committee for IIASA, together with the United Nations University Institute for Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS), and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) have organized a seminar to publicize IIASA’s recent research activities and to discuss the possibility to expand collaboration with the Japanese research community.

Anton Balazh Shutterstock

Anton Balazh Shutterstock

This event will bring together representatives from leading Japanese environmental research institutes and from IIASA. Professor Yoichi Kaya, Chair of the Japan Committee for IIASA, and Japan’s Vice Minister for Global Environment, Soichiro Seki will open the event. IIASA’s Director General and CEO,Professor Dr. Pavel Kabat, will give a keynote speech about IIASA and Japan. IIASA’s Deputy Director General Nebojasa Nakicenovic, will join a panel of experts from the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth, the National Institute for Environmental Studies, and the Asia Center for Air Pollution Research.

The participants will explore opportunities for the Japanese research community and IIASA to collaborate on environmental issues of global scale. They will also discuss past projects conducted with IIASA in the fields of climate change and sustainable development.

The Japan Committee for IIASA was one of IIASA’s founding organizations, and has been the National Member Organization (NMO) representing Japan for over 40 years. Made up of 9 committee members representing experts from academia, government and the private sector, the committee has helped develop a highly-productive relationship between IIASA and Japan.

Selected Research Collaboration

Recent studies have included in-depth analyses of how to maximize the co-benefits from measures to reduce both air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in Japan and Asia; the development of a new set of scenarios to underpin future climate modeling, impact, vulnerability, adaptation, and mitigation assessments; and research into the evolution of diseases and commercially-exploited fish.

IIASA researchers collaborated with the Asia Center for Air Pollution Research using the IIASA GAINS model to identify measures to curb the release of short-lived climate pollutants such as black carbon and methane. By implementing an integrated approach to reducing these pollutants, there is potential to simultaneously increase human wellbeing through reduced local air pollution, improve local environmental quality, increase security of food and energy supply, and lower water demand as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

IIASA, the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), and Stanford University coordinate the work of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC), an international research consortium created to lead the integrated assessment modeling community in the development of new scenarios to form the basis for future climate modeling, assessment of impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation and mitigation options. The first phase saw the development of projections of greenhouse gas emissions, known as the Representative Concentration Pathways, that serve as inputs for earth system and climate models. The global collaboration’s second phase is currently developing the Shared Socio-economic Pathways that facilitate the integrated analysis of future climate impacts, vulnerabilities, and adaptation and mitigation options. Both these are critical to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

 (closing date Monday 6 October)


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Last edited: 11 December 2014

CONTACT DETAILS

Nebojsa Nakicenovic

Distinguished Emeritus Research Scholar Transformative Institutional and Social Solutions Research Group - Energy, Climate, and Environment Program

Event details and program

Register online

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Phone: (+43 2236) 807 0 Fax:(+43 2236) 71 313