International Symposium: Realizing Low Carbon Cities - Bridging Science and Policy

• To strengthen and develop networks in the areas linking urban energy use, urban development and carbon management in the climate change mitigation context;
• To share research results and modeling and analyses challenges and approaches, and to discuss ways to overcoming them;
• To explore ideas for developing joint activities such as syntheses, harmonized cross-comparative studies, and policy analyses;
• To link scholarly endeavors to policy relevance and bridge research and policies.

The program of both the Symposium and the Workshop are also available here in pdf format, in English or in Japanese.

For a list of the speakers and their affiliation please click here.

For a list of the participants and their affiliation please click here.

Moderator: Prof. Hidefumi Imura and Prof. Tsuneo Takeuchi

Global Carbon Project Initiative on Urban and Regional Carbon Management, URCM

The Global Carbon Project (GCP) was established in 2001 in recognition of the enormous scientific challenge and fundamentally critical nature of the carbon cycle for Earth sustainability under the auspice of Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) of four major international scientific programs on global environmental change research. The scientific goal of the project is to develop a complete picture of the global carbon cycle, including both its biophysical and human dimensions together with the interactions and feedbacks between them. The Global Carbon Project launched the Urban and Regional Carbon Management (URCM) Initiative in 2005 recognizing the importance of the area. URCM is a policy-relevant scientific initiative aimed at supporting urban carbon management and sustainable urban development.

URCM addresses some of the most fundamental scientific issues related to carbon management:

• How do urbanization and the global carbon cycle interact globally through population, affluence, energy and other biophysical and socioeconomic mechanisms?
• How can we quantify current and past carbon emissions/sinks in cities and regions? What are the future scenarios of de-carbonized urban and regional development?
• What configurations of underlying and proximate drivers (geography, socioeconomic factors, historical legacies/trajectories etc.) explain the differences in carbon trajectories of cities?
• What management strategies can influence carbon mitigation in cities?
  • What are the trade-offs and synergies of streamlining carbon management in local areas?
  • What are the roles of the institutions and carbon governance structures in sound urban and regional carbon management?
• What we do
  • Scientific networking, development of forums
  • Research agenda setting
  • Coordination of national, regional and international research programs
  • Research syntheses
  • Science-policy interfacing

Contact

For more details on the URCM initiative see the Home page.
For further details on this URCM activity please contact Dr. Shobhakar Dhakal.

Nagoya University Initiative for Integrating Climate Change Mitigation in Urban Development

How we recognize the issues?

• Cities in both industrialized and developing countries are more and more responsible for promoting sustainable buildings, environmentally sustainable transportation, energy efficiency, etc.
• Integrating climate change mitigation measures in urban development is needed, especially in rapidly growing cities in China, India, and Southeast Asian countries.
• Universities and research institutions in Asia must cooperate more closely to provide opportunities for education and research activities, especially for students and young researchers.

We have launched an initiative:

• Nagoya University has launched an initiative to promote research and education programs related to climate change mitigation in cities, especially in rapidly developing Asian cities, in cooperation with universities, research institutions, industries, governments, NGOs, and citizens.

What we do:

• Build an international network (Consortium, or Platform of the Joint Research Initiatives) of universities, research institutions, international organizations, NGOs and others
• Explore a research and education program related to climate change mitigation and adaptation policies/measures in cities
• Exchange information
• Form an international research team
• Organize international meetings to share research and education processes and outcomes

How we contribute to cities? (our goals)

• Design and build “low-carbon” cities, halving GHG emissions by 2050
• Achieve drastic improvement in the energy efficiency of cities
• Seek for “macro-efficiency” (or “social system efficiency”) rather than “micro-efficiency”
• Propose a transition path to a “low-carbon” society, or “low-carbon city” through integrating environmental measures in urban development
• Incorporate technological and socio-economic options
• Establish a platform of research and education for young researchers, especially those who will lead initiatives in developing countries
• Conduct field studies on developing Asian cities
• Propose feasible measures enforceable in developing Asian cities

Contact

For more information on the Initiative for Integrating Climate Change Mitigation in Urban Development please contact Prof. Hidefumi Imura.

Center for Global Environmental Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies Japan

National Institute for Environment Studies Japan (NIES) has chosen four priority programs on which to focus its resources over the term of its second Five-Year Research Plan: climate change, sustainable material cycles, environmental risk, and the Asian environment. Centre for Global Environmental Researcher (CGER) has been tasked with heading the priority program on climate change. CGER have added four new research sections to the Center in order to respond to this challenge. In addition, CGER’s previous activities in climate change research, such as monitoring and database creation, have now been made an integral unit of the priority program on climate change to allow a more strategic approach to their implementation.

Since its inauguration, GCER has been engaged in supporting and integrating global environmental research and monitoring the global environment. It has been keeping an eye on developments in domestic and international research on the global environment and contemplating the necessary framework to support such research. In addition to getting involved in relevant projects and responding to newly identified needs, we are also keeping our eyes set on the future in order to further expand our activities. In recent years, we have been strengthening our role as a headquarters for offices such as the Global Carbon Project International Office, the Greenhouse Gas Inventory Office, and the AsiaFlux Office. Furthermore, from this year, CGER is going to be acting as a hub of collaboration on earth observation in the field of climate change.

Contact

For more details on this organizer visit the Center for Global Environmental Research web-site or contact Dr. Yasuhiro Sasano.

Proceedings

February 17–18, 2009, Nagoya

For substantive information, please contact Dr. Shobhakar Dhakal, Global Carbon Project.