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Asia-Pacific Seminar Archives
Appendix of 13th AP Seminar
1.Attendance
The Seminar was attended by experts from eighteen countries, which included Australia, China, Fiji, Indonesia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, New Zealand Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, Tuvalu, United States of America, and Viet Nam. The Seminar was also attended by representatives of 13 UN and other international organizations, namely Asian Development Bank (ADB), Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), UNESCAP, UNFCCC Secretariat and United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). Representatives from Global Environment Centre (GEC), Japan and National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Japan and Institute for Global Environmental Studies (IGES) were also present. A number of resource persons from research institutes, universities, and private companies also attended the Seminar.
2.Opening addresses
The Seminar commenced with opening address by Mr. Kazuhiko Takemoto, Deputy Director-General, Global Environmental Bureau, Ministry of the Environment, Japan (MOEJ). Mr. Takemoto underscored the importance of international concerted actions in addressing global environmental a problems such as climate change. Attention was drawn to the worldwide expectation on early entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol, while significant efforts already taken to meet the GHG reduction target set in the Protocol were also highlighted. He hoped that the Seminar should provide a valuable opportunity for dynamic interactions among the participants not only through the formal programmes but also through informal contacts and meeting throughout the Seminar period.
Mr. Tadahiro Ando, Governor, Miyazaki Prefectural Government, welcomed the participants by highlighting the importance of the Seminar for providing an opportunity to coordinate various ongoing efforts to address climate change issues in Asia and the Pacific. Referring to a clean and rich natural environment of Miyazaki, he emphasized that maintaining the precious heritage for the next generation was the responsibility for those living in today's world.
Mr. Shigemitu Tumura, Mayor, Miyazaki City, in his welcome speech, echoed that climate change was one of the most serious concern threatening lives of human being and the Seminar should be a vital occasion for all the participants from Asia and the Pacific to share views and information for promoting international cooperation in the field. He also commended the seminar for providing the opportunity for the local citizen to enhance their understanding and awareness on the climate change issues.
3.Response to Address Climate Change Issues at International, National and Local Level
Ms. Ma. Gerarda Asuncion D. Merilo, Senior Environmental Management Specialist, Environmental Management Bureau, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Philippines, highlighted past and present national initiatives addressing the climate change phenomenon as well as efforts toward the implementation of the CDM. She emphasized that as reflected through the country's significant milestones in response to climate change concerns, the Philippines was able to establish its Inter-Agency Committee on Climate Change (IACCC) even prior to the signing of the UNFCCC thus, was considered as among the first countries to respond to the issues of climate change. As her presentation enumerates the various activities undertaken primarily by the IACCC, it is worthy to note that such efforts covered relevant areas of concern such as policy and legal developments, institutional developments and capability building geared towards its anticipated participation in the CDM regime. Multi-stakeholder structure of the IACCC was also brought to the particular attention by the participants.
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Mr. Kok-Seng Yap, Deputy Director-General, Malaysian Meteorological Service, Malaysia, highlighted Malaysia's engagement with the international community on climate change issues. He stressed Malaysia's support and commitment to the UNFCCC principles and that climate change agenda must be viewed in the context of sustainable development. It was also pointed out that the principle of sustainable development had been built into country's long and short term development plans as well into various policies including the environment. The presentation also described in detail Malaysia's institutional framework for the UNFCCC and CDM, national climate change assessments that had been done thus far, its contribution towards climate change monitoring, its capacity building programme and its public awareness programme.
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Dr. Asdaporn Kairapanond, Senior Environmental Specialist, Office of International Cooperation on Natural Resources and Environment, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Thailand, presented comprehensively Thailand's response to Climate Change, including its participation to the UNFCCC process as well as bilateral and multilateral projects on climate change. Particular highlights were given to the mitigation measures in particular in the energy and forestry sectors, vulnerability and adaptation aspects from the viewpoint of a tropical country. She emphasized that Thailand attached primary importance to domestic actions, thus the Kyoto Mechanism options were considered as supplementary measures. As the country considered that CDM projects should be assessed within the entire sustainable development agenda, it was stressed that only the quality proven CDM projects would be implemented in Thailand. It was pointed out by the participants that the transportation sector would be the domain for future CDM projects while the practical project design procedures had yet to be elaborated.
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Ms. Lyubov Inytina, Senior Expert, Environmental Policy and Regulation, Climate Change Coordination Center, Kazakhstan, outlined Kazakhstan's response to climate change. Emphasis was given to the country's prospects for development of potential JI/CDM projects, including the areas of national priorities, project approval process and project screening criteria, as well as the establishment of enabling measures, such as the Kazakhstan Carbon Fund. The attention was drawn to the criteria to ensure the projects' contribution to sustainable development, such as the conformity with the National Agenda 21.
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Ms Bridget Brill, Senior Policy Officer, International Climate Change Team, Australian Greenhouse Office, Australia, outlined Australia's response to climate change. The presentation focused particularly on the unique development and structure of the Australian Greenhouse Office - the world's first government agency dedicated to climate change. Ms. Brill went through the various program and policy responses to greenhouse abatement in Australia including the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target, Greenhouse Challenge, and Greenhouse Friendly. Ms. Brill highlighted the importance of sharing information about policies, tools and approaches in the region and Australia's commitment to sharing its experience and expertise in order to build technical and institutional capacity in developing countries. In relation with expressed Australia's position on the Kyoto Protocol, the participants noted the necessity to discuss post-Kyoto arrangement in the future Seminars.
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Mr. Robert Kaiwai, Manager, Major Stakeholders, New Zealand presented New Zealand's national response to climate change. The Government policies and programmes such as emission charge, Negotiated Greenhouse Agreements and Greenhouse Gas Abatement Projects were outlined. Also highlighted were programmes to address forest industry and agricultural emissions, while New Zealand's experiences, in particular, in relation with setting a new levy to fund necessary research were discussed.
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Mr. Hiroyuki Nagatomo Secretary-General of the Himuka Nanohana (Rape Blossom) Eco Project, presented on his project which linked rape blossom plantation, production and use of vegetable oil, and recycling of the used oil into bio-diesel fuel. It was stressed that the projected had been effective in raising awareness of the local people as well as motivate them to transfer their climate concerns into bottom-up actions to build energy efficient society. The participants commended the undertaking as an exemplar local effort to address climate change in participatory approach.
4.Capacity Building to Address Climate Change Issues
Mr. Mukul Sanwal, Special Adviser, UNFCCC, provided an overview on latest key issues of capacity building for climate change actions. He raised fundamental questions on why despite increasing capacity building activities governments reports the assistance provided was inadequate in priority areas and put forward five priority issues for further discussion in the Seminar, i.e. balance between internally driven and externally driven approaches, focus on exchange of experiences, lessons learned and good practices, capacity building methodologies including networking of experts, training and workshops, and evaluation of the effectiveness of the capacity building activities. The participants echoed by elaborating and exchanging information on how the one time capacity building events could be linked to effective programme with long-term impacts.
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Dr. Toral Patel-Weynand, Senior Science Policy Analyst, Department of State, the United States of America, presented U.S. initiatives to meet global change challenges, with highlights on international research cooperation, vulnerability and adaptation initiatives, technical support initiatives, national communication-related initiatives. Some concrete examples included US NOAA International Climate Cooperation, Development of Flood Early Warning Systems, USAID Support for National Communications / GHG Inventories. She stressed that country driven priorities, once set, are an effective way to meet targeted capacity building needs, and that capacity building fosters an enabling environment that facilitate the transfer of information, methodologies between countries and these are key to meeting global challenges.
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Mr. Peter Repinski, Associate Expert, UNEP/ROAP presented on UNEP's climate change capacity building activities for industry, and more specifically on the Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction from Industry in Asia and the Pacific" (GERIAP) project, which encouraged industry to take action and reduce GHG emissions as well as costs by improving its energy efficiency by applying as Cleaner Production (CP) methodology. The project set its focus on four energy intensive industry sectors (Iron/steel, lime/cement, pulp & paper and chemicals) within 9 Asian countries (Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam) and contributed to gaining insights on how to effectively build capacity for energy efficiency/GHG emissions reductions in Asia. The information on practical experiences on how to get industry involved was exchanged among the participants.
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Mr. Ferda Gelegen, Industrial Development Officer, UNIDO, outlined UNIDO's approach to "capacity building" for climate change, stressing that UNIDO focuses on Industry and the need to lead industry in Host and Annex 1 countries towards implementation of CDM/JI projects. Specifically, he provided past examples of various technical assistance projects undertaken both in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as outside of it. A recent programme targeting CDM project identification, design and promotion for Brazil and South Africa, culminating in a hands-on-promotion in Japan of each country's CDM capacity and projects (so-called delegate programme), illustrated the practical approach of UNIDO to directly assist the private sector or "industry". He mentioned the programme positively demonstrated an integrated approach to technical assistance, since it was undertaken as part of a UN interagency project involving several key organizations, including UNFCCC.
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Mr. Yosuke Fukushima, Research Associate, IGES, presented on a new MOEJ and IGES initiative entitled the Integrated Capacity Strengthening for the Clean Development Mechanism. As the initiative highlighted the basic principles of synergy, simplicity and sustainability, he reported on the initial activities of "Needs Assessment" which had just been conducted for India, Indonesia and Cambodia, as well as the general findings, needs and gaps identified by such activities. Among those findings, emphasis was placed on the necessity yet to identify most critical needs of capacity building at regional and subregional levels as well as the country specific priorities.
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5.Preparation for Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) / Joint Implementation (JI)
Dr. Naoki Matsuo, Chair, Senior Research Fellow, Climate Experts, provided the "Issue Mapping" on the preparation for CDM / JI, in which he presented the summary of the status quo of the CDM scheme, as well as described several issues that still remained to be sorted out in the on-going and emerging CDM scheme. Such remaining issues and associated questions included;
- Project Design Document, in which additionality, baseline and methodology should be addressed (How to make the project as CDM?)
- Designated National Authority as a key host country institution (How to invite foreign investment?)
- Domestic incentives in investing countries (Does CER utilized of in domestic emissions trading scheme?)
- Project selection (What types of project are promising?)
- Financing the project (Is carbon financing still unknown in the financial sector?)
- Other issues including sustainability, utilization of public money, small-scale CDM, community-based CDM, etc.
In response, the participants raised questions concerning still unclear definitions of some terminology used in the CDM scheme, for which additional background information as well as prospects for further development were provided by Dr. Matsuo.
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Mr. Taito Nakalevu, Climate Change Adaptation Officer, SPREP, presented on the Small Scale CDM projects in the Pacific island countries. He highlighted a recent assessment conducted by SPREP and Pacific Consultants Co. under sponsorship of MOEJ, the result of which indicated that a small scale CDM project could contribute to the sustainable development of the tourism and manufacturing industries and to GHG emission reductions through introducing photovoltaic power generation. Other areas for potential projects include biomass, eco-tourism, solid waste management and renewable energy. It was pointed out that, to promote further development of CDM projects in the Pacific countries, awareness raising and capacity building activities should be taken up by the Government together with the measures to encourage of investment by removing the policy and legislative barriers.
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Mr. Osamu Asai, Chief, Solution Engineering Department, Engineering Division, Obayashi Corporation introduced "Circumstances surrounding CDM Project: Feasibility Study on Landfill Gas-to-Electricity Project in Thailand. Based upon the experience gained through the project, he introduced some ideas to further promote CDM projects in the future, including an easy access to information in host countries. In concurrence with his speech, participants added that it would be especially important for investors to firstly contact and consult with designated national authorities (DNA).
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Mr. Masami Tsuji, Environment Specialist, ADB, gave a presentation titled: "ADB's capacity building activities on CDM." Firstly he introduced some ADB policies, such as Environment Policy, Energy 2000, addressing its strong commitment to climate change issues. Secondly he illustrated ADB's past, present, and future activities with capacity building components on climate change, including ALGAS, REACH and technical assistance programs for specific countries/sectors, as well as newly approved "CDM Facility" in ADB. He emphasized that the capacity building for DNA should not be limited to CDM permit issues, but should be sought in a broader context, in cooperation with other national agencies and stakeholders.
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Mr. Henry Baiquni, Head, Climate Change Division, Ministry of the Environment, Indonesia, presented on the latest development for country's preparation as the host country of Kyoto Mechanisms. He particularly highlighted the institutional arrangements in establishing the DNA in very near future, and other key issues for hosting CDM projects, such as the setting of national criteria for sustainable development, project development, monitoring and evaluation. He also identified the fields in which the country needed assistance, such as institutional capacity building both in central and local governments, forest and carbon sink inventory study, vulnerability and adaptation study and CDM project identification in different sectors.
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Mr. Nguyen Khac Hieu, Climate Change Coordinator, National Office for Climate Change and Ozone Protection, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Viet Nam made a presentation regarding the implementation of CDM in his country in recent years. Besides, general information on CDM activities in Viet Nam, the presentation focused on the need and requirement to establish CDM National Authority (CNA) with an appropriate institutional framework to manage CDM activities at country level. For obtaining the maximum possible benefits from participation in the CDM market, his emphasized that the approval process for CDM projects is an important element of the national strategy. The objective of the approval process is to implement a clear and simple structure reflecting the international requirement of the Kyoto Protocol while being adapted to the Vietnamese situation.
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Mr. Kunihiro Ueno, Assistant Manger, Project Division, GEC, Japan presented programme on "CDM Feasibility Study (FS) Scheme" supported by MOEJ. Introducing knowledge and experience accumulated through the programme, he mentioned, while feasibility projects were conducted in fine manner basically, some difficulties have been posed, including assessment of accurate cost-effectiveness and improvement of the baseline scenarios and addtionality. His report drew a specially attention by host countries, which suggested sharing data from FS between Japanese project bodies and host countries.
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Mr. Masakazu Ichimura, Principal Researcher, OECC, presented the "Information Platform for CDM", a new initiative sponsored by MOEJ as a support to preparation for CDM. Recognizing that there are many gaps between Japanese investors and CDM host countries, he pointed out it would provide a useful tool to facilitate the information exchange to promote CDM investments. This includes the developments in international institution in digested manner, and host country information. The initiative was welcomed by the participants and suggested to seek effective coordination and collaboration with other initiatives and host countries. The participants also underlined the necessity to identify most critical information among an enormous variety of available information.
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6.International Cooperation for Adaptation Strategies
Dr. Shardul Agrawala, Administrator, OECD provided a comprehensive overview on the currently outstanding issues regarding the climate change adaptation. He presented an up-to-date definition of key concepts such as adaptation, vulnerability, adaptation/mitigation synergies and climate/development linkages, and identified the primary challenges for the mainstreaming of adaptation policies in those areas. Referring to the findings from case studies in OECD Development and Climate Change Project, he highlighted several important adaptation topics to be further discussed, which include practical linkage of adaptation and mitigation actions, reconciliation of mainstreaming and additionality concepts, and coherence between climate policies and broader resource management policies such as land use.
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Dr. Nobuo Mimura, Professor, Ibaraki University, presented current situation and future possibilities on international cooperation toward National Action Plan for Adaptation (NAPA). Reference data provided by Dr. Mimura included, negative impacts of typhoon, storms, and sea level rise on roads, railways, utilities, and other matters. Stressing the important role that scientific matters would play in climate change efforts, he drew attention to vulnerability assessment, and needs assessment as a fist step before making a policy response, and especially in the context of Asia and the Pacific Countries.
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Mr. Martin Rice, Programme Manager, Communications and Development, APN, noted that adverse affects of climate change and vulnerability were already in place, and yet gaps exist in understanding the nature of this vulnerability, and indeed many Asia-Pacific developing countries lack the capacity to adapt to climate change and variability. Aware of the necessity for international cooperation in adaptation strategies, he introduced APN's activities helping the Asia-Pacific manage climate change through research, dialogue and training. Such activities includes documenting climate variability and change, assessing vulnerability and enhancing resilience, and strengthening networking and regional capabilities.
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Mr. Taito Nakalevu, Climate Change Adaptation Officer, SPREP provided basic information on National Adaptation Plan of Action, under GEF fund, as a simplified and direct channel of communication for information relating to the urgent and immediate adaptation needs of Least Develop Countries (LDCs), including many Pacific Island Countries (PICs). He overviewed the international institutional arrangements to support PICs and their respective situation on the development of NAPA. In connection with the presentation by Mr. Nakalevu, Mr. Seluka Seluka, Climate Change Coordinator, Department of Environment, Office of the Prime Minister, Tuvalu, provided complementary information on the plight of his country, including some disaster cases.
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7.Follow-up of the Type II Partnership Project: Promoting Regional Cooperation Addressing Climate Change
Mr. Aslam Khan, Chief, Environment Section, Environment and Sustainable Development Division, UNESCAP, presented the history and needs of development of regional cooperation on climate change, which led to Type II Partnership Projects today. Referring to several ongoing ESCAP activities, he emphasized that potential benefit might be brought about in the current Type II Partnership Projects, by replication of the methodologies and information sharing.
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Mr. Hiroyasu Amano, Consultant, Land and Environment System Consulting Department, Nomura Research Institute, reviewed the developments of the past activities of AP-Net and provided proposals for next steps. According to the recent follow-up survey, the number of users is growing and AP-Net is expected to play a more important role as an information dissemination and clearing house tool. To further enhance the utilization, he proposed some structural changes of the website, which include building up AP-Net's own contents, expanding the documents library, introducing e-Learning CDM and Data Center etc.
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Dr. Linda Stevenson, Programme Manager, APN, introduced Scientific Capacity Building/Enhancement for Sustainable Development in Developing Countries (CAPaBLE). The Programme is expected to develop and enhance scientific capacity in development Asia Pacific countries to improve their decision-making in target areas related to climate change and water and food security, that are directly linked to their sustainable development. Through the phased programme, the CAPaBLE expects to enhance the capacity of leading researchers in Asia-Pacific developing countries to produce comprehensive scientific information on climate change impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation and mitigation opportunities which are made available for policy makers and that will contribute to international scientific exercises such as the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC.
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