The Center for Global Environment Research (CGER) was established in 1990 and started its activities as a separate research center covering a wide range of global environmental issues such as stratospheric ozone, global warming, acid rain, and biodiversity. Later on, the need for NIES to tackle large-scale environmental problems that transcend national borders increased, and it was, therefore, decided that research on topics such as expansive air pollution and biodiversity would be carried out by specialized centers. Since 2001, CGER has focused on elucidating various phenomena related to global warming as well as on problem-solving research to create a low-carbon society.
One of the strengths of CGER is continuous global monitoring of greenhouse gases by ground-based stations, ships, and aircraft that started in the 1990s, and from 2009 even by the GHG observing satellite “IBUKI” (GOSAT) (currently implemented by the Satellite Observation Center). Another strength is that we are gathering human resources that can respond to the changing needs of society and conduct both fundamental and applied research in a flexible and versatile manner. To date, we have expanded our individual research fields to inter-disciplinarily research comprising research from detection of changes in the global environment based on observations to assessment of climate change impacts and risks using numerical calculation models. We will continue to contribute with scientific knowledge that is necessary for policy-making to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (“mitigation measures”) and to minimize the negative impacts of climate change on society (“adaptation measures”).
The Paris Agreement, which came into effect in 2016, stipulates that the average global temperature rise be kept well below 2°C compared to the pre-industrial level, pursuing efforts to further constrain this warming to 1.5°C. by balancing the anthropogenic emission and absorption of greenhouse gases during the second half of this century. To address this urgent and ambitious goal, I would like to contribute with the latest scientific knowledge to the query of how effective various measures are globally and how much effort is needed to maintain the global environment in a sustainable way.
SAIGUSA Nobuko