15th AIM International Workshop
February 20-22, 2010
Ohyama Memorial Hall, NIES, Tsukuba, Japan
February 22 (Monday) Day 3
10:25-11:55 Panel Discussion
Coordinator: Dr. M. Kainuma (NIES, Japan)
Rapporteur: Prof. A. Deshpande (MANIT, India)
Panelist:Prof. P.R. Shukla (IIM, India)

Dr. K. Jiang (ERI, China)

Dr. R. Shrestha (Nepal)

Prof. R. Boer (IPB, Indonesia)

Dr. J. Edmonds (JGCRI/PNNL, U.S.A.)

Prof. C. Ho (UTM, Malaysia)

Dr. T. JUNG(ADB, Philippines)

Key questions
1.

What kind of Asia LCS scenarios shall we develop?

2.

What kind of strategies is required/recommended to make use of Asia LCS scenarios to support
climate policy development?

3.

What activities of AIM are required/recommended to develop Asia LCS scenarios and to support
climate policies?

The Panel discussion started with the address of the coordinator Dr. M. Kainuma (NIES, Japan) who
introduced the LCS issues and concerns of the 15 th AIM International Workshop. She proposed threequestions and invited the panelist for comments and feedbacks on the AIM modeling exercises.
Comments by panelists are summarized below.
 Prof. P.R. Shukla (IIM, India)
In his deliberation Prof. Shukla opined that all the three issues are connected.
The Asia LCS scenarios are important as international modeling forums andscientific community world over are giving importance to future development
scenarios in their analysis. Asian scenarios shall remain the focus both in the
short and the long terms. He emphasized on working out a framework of Asianscenario development addressing the ground realities and requirements ofpolicymakers. It is expected that in the year 2020, the emissions from Asia beingquite large and emphasis being given on emission reduction measures, the issues
about implementation of actions would be of greater concern for thepolicymakers.
He called upon the researchers to address the issues of policy changes and fulfill
the need of policymakers requiring support from scientific community bycarrying out policy relevant analysis. Further, he added that from the Indian
perspective, the LCS scenario threads with the India’s objective of sustainable
development in creating Sustainable Low carbon scenario. He pointed out thatfor development of Asian LCS will require cooperation amongst various Asianforums and also with global modeling community.
He said that, to support the broad strategies of climate policy, policymakers are
depending heavily on the research inputs at the same time the outcomes ofvarious researches are being put under high scrutiny. He suggested that toincrease the credibility the research community should be open to discussion andmake information widely accessible by getting the research outcomes publishedin reputed journals.
He emphasized the need to collaborate in Asian modeling exercise and learn
from each other’s experience and also to develop common protocols foranswering common set of questions to coordinate responses to the specific issuesfor policymakers.
In 15 years of AIM activates, the driving force has remained in Japan and havegreatly contributed in capacity building for Asian country researchers andmodelers. He expressed hope the AIM team will continue to furthering andcoordinating the Asian research activity and capacity building for the region.
 Dr. K. Jiang (ERI, China)
Dr. Jiang in his remarks for the first question said that the CGE type model in hisexperience gives more consistent analysis. In China the focus has been on low
carbon economy rather than low carbon society and indicated that policymakers
primary concern is if China takes the path of low carbon what shall becharacteristic GDP growth rate. In his second comment about the cost benefit
analysis, he said that in case low carbon activity brings new economic activity to
China this will result in a positive impact on GDP and expressed the hope to use
CGE type modeling exercise addressing potential opportunities in low carbon
activity. He felt that the time is now opportune to go back for large scale
integrated assessment modeling to address the issues of clubbing land use andadaptation together for China, as recent modeling studoes could support this andthey are in the process of Chinese 12th Five Year Plan development. The
collaborative network of AIM provides good opportunity to learn fromensembles of low carbon case studies carried out in different cities. He alsopressed upon to draw learnings from the low carbon road map for Japandeveloped by AIM colleagues. He concluded emphasizing on the importance ofongoing negotiation process and expressed the need to prepare for it using
modeling exercises for climate change mitigation.
 Dr. R. Shrestha (Nepal)
Dr. Shrestha gave the developing country perspective and highlighted that mostof the attention is being given to China and India in the Asian region, whereas
the rest of the countries in Asia are also equally important for climate change
mitigation and adaptation strategies in the region. There is an equal need forthem to be sensitized for climate change mitigation and low carbon society
efforts as their roles are also enhancing. It is important to focus on thecommunication with policymakers. He suggested that for linking the issues ofclimate change and sustainable development, it is important to priorities thestrategies and technology options available for the policymakers. He emphasizedthat these linkages will be important while formulating low carbon pathways
and action plans as, in many cases, there exists a synergy in adaptation andmitigation strategies. While talking about the problems encountered in theenergy modeling exercises, he stressed upon the enhancement of information
dissemination about the new technology development and their penetration rate
for long term scenarios specifically in developing countries and suggested toinclude additional elemental model for predicting rate of technology penetration,in the AIM family of models.
 Prof. R. Boer (IPB, Indonesia)
Prof. Boer reiterated the importance of studies carried out by AIM modelingcommunity to help policymakers to change the way they develop the country’s
future. He emphasized that in such studies care must be taken about thebehavioral changes (not ease to do but easy to say) and the use of technology. Heelaborated the technology into three types of technology as; 1 st readily available
technology but diffusion is limited due to country policy or up-scaling costs, 2nd
readily available technology which can be easily developed by country capacity
and with low cost and the 3rd as advanced technology or leap-frog technology
which are suitable for low carbon pathways. He emphasized on the need toincorporate the deceleration and acceleration of diffusion of technology in themodeling exercises and link the country’s economic development and climate

variability in integrated climate models. He concluded by saying that there are
big challenges to the modeling community and the challenges pester moving
ahead in research, but it is very interesting to continue to work.
 Dr. J. Edmonds (JGCRI/PNNL, U.S.A.)
At first Dr. Edmonds acknowledged the 15 years of AIM team accomplishment
for community building and research contribution not only for Asia but for theworld. He urged the AIM team to continue to further the community building
and research activities which are their core strength.
In his comments on the issue of low carbon society scenario development, hedescribed the AIM approach to scenarios as a long term vision and emphasizedon establishing the institutions for formulating comprehensive approaches toaccomplish the low carbon society goals of Asian economies.
On the second issue of developing LCS strategies, he suggested that the AIMteam should continue to develop database and standards for databasedevelopment. In addition, it is time now that the AIM leadership should also beextended to the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC) for
developing global set of standards for data bases.
On the third issue he commented that AIM has been very successful indeveloping wealth of models and it is important to integrated these tools; likeLand use model with energy model, Water model with energy model andclimate model, etc. and contribute in the world integrated earth system model
development which is a potential area and the direction for this scientificcommunity. Dr. Edmonds pointed out that interaction between technology andpolicy is important as technology alone won’t achieve low carbon society goals
and AIM leadership should also contribute in EMF 24. He reiterated that, having
state of the art computing infrastructure and best modelers in the world, AIMteam should also venture into formal uncertainty analysis.
 Prof. C. Ho (UTM, Malaysia)
Prof. Ho in his remarks stated that, Malaysia being the young nation andundergoing transformation with rapid urban development, the LCS scenario
provides an opportunity to leapfrog and felt the need for early measures, use ofgreen technology, comprehensive land use, compact city development, urban
planning and sustainable forestry for country’s development. Emphasizing theneed for common single institutional framework for efficient implementation, hepointed out that for Malaysia, the strategy is to incorporate LCS into National

Spatial Plan. He also stressed the importance of effective communication at every
level for policy planners and implementing agencies.
 Dr. T. JUNG(ADB, Philippines)
Dr. Jung echoed the need for institutional network for developing LCS scenario
development. Highlighting the Asian developing country point of view, heunderlined the need to consider the development concerns like poverty, hunger,education and incorporate the demographic transitions, electricity needs, percapita GPD and development side stories in the modeling exercises. Stressing theneed to integrate the sustainability issue for LCS scenario development in Asiancountries, he pointed out the financing issues in terms of how to provide
technology to achieve the global goal needs to be addressed for decision makers
and also asked to include the issues of cost of adaptation for climate change orextreme events.
After the panel presented their views, comments from the floor were invited and Prof. Matsuoka (KyotoUniv., Japan), Mr. T. Seino (MOE, Japan) and Dr. S. Nishioka (IGES, Japan) contributed to the discussion.
Important issues highlighted by them are summarized below.
 Prof. Matsuoka (Kyoto Univ., Japan)
Prof. Matsuka explained the AIM modeling development exercise from AIM
point of view and elaborated that the objective of AIM modeling development isto account for the development process and to describe the pathways to LCS,
where the development is accounted for with the help of fiscal capital, social
capital and institutional framework. He emphasized the need and necessity ofdata building and integration of various tools. He assured that this has always
been a priority on the AIM modeling agenda and AIM team shall continue towork in this direction.
 Dr. S. Nishioka (IGES, Japan)
Dr. Nishioka pointed out that in regional or country related models, impacts ofchange in industrial structure of each country and role of international assistanceor related money or financial aspects also needs to be captured.
 Mr. T. Seino (MOE, Japan)
Mr. Seino appreciated the efforts of NIES for their significant role in developing
both Low Carbon Pathways 2050 and also 2020 pathways for Japan. He opinedthat the objective of the modeling exercise is not to achieve perfect outputs but tohave convincing output. To make modeling exercise more suitable forpolicymakers by providing convincing output he suggested a two step process

for bringing together the modeling scientists and real world. He suggested that,as a first step models should offer, an opportunity for scientists, for industry, andfor common person to look at the various aspects of the possible scenarios byshowing them some options including the BAU and LCS and; secondly models
should provide with indispensable information on high-tech scenario, the cost
scenario and accordingly based on the feedback / responses / reactions from theindustries and the denizens, a second draft of the scenarios should be drawn. In
the end, he said, that the comparative advantage of the models, is to keep theconsistency between the cost and technology. He also added that models should
be used as the communication tools for policymakers. He expressed the hopethat the LCS studies can have an input in national development plans / national
strategic plans for being adopted in each country and this is how AIM
community can contribute to the policymaking process.

At the end of the panel discussion Dr. Kainuma, extended her heartiest thanks to the panelists and theaugust gathering for their valuable comments and suggestions.

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