The Second International Symposium on the Atmospheric Brown Cloud and Short-lived Climate Pollutants (ABC-SLCP) along with Joint Planning Meeting and ABC Science Team Meeting were held, back to back, in Tokyo, Japan, during 21-23 July 2014. These events were hosted by the University of Tokyo.
The ABC-SLCP Symposium, which was held during 21-22 July 2014, was attended by ABC scientists, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Climate Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), and scientists from International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), and S12 project. The objectives of the symposium were to share research findings of ongoing activities of ABC programme including observations, modeling, emission inventory, impact assessment, and mitigation. It was also aimed to share science-based knowledge of ABC programme with CCAC.
The opening addresses were given by Mr. Kaveh Zahedi, Regional Director, UNEP Regional Office for Asia and Pacific (ROAP) and Prof. V. Ramanathan, Chair, ABC International Science Team (through the skype from USA). Mr. Zahedi, in his address, emphasized that the air pollution has been emerged as an important issue at the global level to be addressed due to its detrimental impacts on health and environment. He also mentioned that the scientific research like ABC played an important role in bringing up the issue of air pollution at the international agenda. While, Prof. Ramanthan, apart from sharing historical achievements of the ABC programme in terms of scientific findings those revealed the impacts of aerosols on climate, agriculture, water resources, and human health and successful in transfer of information to policy makers for instigating of mitigation measures, emphasized that to address air pollution we must think globally, plan regionally, and act locally. For example, success of Project Surya brought a change in the life of people living in remote areas in India. Prof. T. Nakajima, in his welcome address, welcomes the participants for the meaning symposium. Ms. Helena M. Valdés, Head, CCAC shared the status of coalition and prospects of CCAC to collaborate with ABC Programme.
The presentations during ABC-SLCP symposium were focused on observations, modeling, and emissions; comparison of modeling and observations; and health impacts of ABCs. About 30 experts including ABC scientists from Germany, India, China, Japan, Korea, Italy, Nepal and other countries presented their ongoing research on the ABCs including physical, chemical, optical properties, and impacts of the ABCs on the radiative forcing, cloud formation, and visibility. The modeling simulations of ABCs showed their trans-boundary nature causing a significant impact on regional climate, water resources, and human health. The findings of the observation and modeling simulation revealed a seriousness of ABCs issues which need to be tackled to improve air quality and climate of the region. Requirement of improvement in emission inventories and modeling simulations was also suggested in several presentations.
The Joint Planning Meeting (close door), which was held on 23 July 2014 involving ABC, CCAC, and S12 project, was attended by ABC Science Team members, CCAC Secretariat and partners, S12 research team, and UNEP. The objective of the meeting was to review the ABC activities in light of ongoing activities of S12 and CCAC and to plan joint activities that can be implemented in near future. The meeting agreed that ABC and CCAC can complement each other by developing joint activities including joint assessment of the SLCPs for Asia and the Pacific region. The meeting discussed potential areas for collaboration and joint activities, which include capacity building at national level, regional assessment, national action planning, and cook stoves standardization.
Same day after the Joint Planning Meeting, ABC Science Team Meeting was held at the same venue. It was a close-door meeting, attended by ABC Science Team members only. The meeting discussed issues related to observatories, standardization of BC measurement, new funding for ABC, and new members to the science team.
All three events, that is, ABC-SLCP International Symposium, Joint Planning Meeting, and ABC Science Team Meeting were highly successful.
