NIES was established in 1974 at Tsukuba Science City, around 50km north-east from Tokyo metropolitan area. It has been playing a major role in environmental research in Japan. NIES conducts multidisciplinary environmental studies in natural, social and human sciences. NIES, in collaboration with institutes in ERI/China, IIM/India, AIT/Thailand, and others, has jointly developed a large-scale computer simulation model called AIM (Asia-Pacific Integrated Model) to assess climate policy options. AIM developed IPCC SRES/A1B marker scenario. The model has been widely used for policy studies and its results have been presented in various environmental assessments such as IPCC/SRES UNEP/GEO, ECO-Asia, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Japan Low-Carbon Society (LCS) Scenario, Japan - UK Joint Research Project “Developing visions for a Low-Carbon Society through sustainable development”), and IPCC new scenarios for AR5.
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In order to realize Asian Low Carbon Societies, we will take following methodologies;
(1) focus on some domestic and international factors which control the realization of LCS,
(2) describe the process of development, accumulation, and deepening of these factors with multi-layered, spatial, and integrated quantification tools,
(3) apply the tools to whole Asian area as well as various different regions in the Asia,
(4) take account of regional distinctive characteristics of diversification appropriately, in corporate with the policy options for other important problems in the Asian region in the first half of the 21st century, and
(6) design Asian low carbon societies with a back-casting methodology and also road maps toward those societies.
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Our team has made collaborative researches with several Asian countries, namely, China, India and Thailand, through the development and application of integrated assessment models, such as AIM (Asia-Pacific Integrated Model). The Ministry of the Environment of Japan and the UK defra have been jointly promoting a scientific research project, titled “Developing visions for a LCS through sustainable development”, since February 16, 2006. Our research team plays a central role in the project with UKERC and Tyndall Centre for Climate Change in UK. The third workshop was held in 13-15 Feb, 2008 in Tokyo and we produced “Call for Action” towards Low-Carbon World, “executive summary” and “full report” of workshop. Those outputs have been delivered to G8, UNFCC and other climate change negotiation processes. We’d like to invite all stakeholders to achieve “Low-Carbon World” for our future humanity.
1) Research areas/topics/approaches and methodologies that NIES can contribute to the LCS-RNet: Low-carbon society scenario, Low-carbon city, Action plans toward LCS.2) Expectation to the LCS-RNet: to be a research platform and Information center to support stakeholders to make LCS happen.
3) Common research question: how to motivate stakeholders towards LCS through research activity.
4) Our target: to supply useful quantitative LCS scenarios to make LCS happened in Japan, Asia and the world.
