About us

What is Climate Change Asia

Climate Change Asia (CCA) is a Program launched at the Asian Institute of Technology to meet the diverse range of capacity building needs required to pursue low carbon development and achieve climate resilient societies in Asia. The program is designed to support the recently adopted Paris Agreement and the 2030 Development Agenda. A key feature of the program is to develop capacities in Asia to prepare, finance, and implement ‘bankable’ climate change mitigation and adaptation projects. The operational unit/ secretariat of CCA is hosted by the Regional Resource Centre for Asia and the Pacific (AIT-RRC.AP). The operation of CCA is overseen by the chair, vice chair and coordination committee which comprises of internationally known experts.

What we endeavour to achieve

Enhance capacities, especially in the public sector, at multiple levels, for developing quality, bankable project proposals, through workshops and professional mentoring that will ultimately result in implementable projects.

  • Promote a shift towards low carbon development and augment climate resilience in Asia, through capacity building programs to meet diverse but specific needs— technical, institutional, and policy-related.
  • Create an enabling environment to help diffuse climate change science into policy and practice, through professional seminars and special events.
  • Become an open source for knowledge dissemination, through flagship products such as policy briefs, webinars, and working papers. 

Our Areas of Expertise

We have a gamut of climate change-related expertise, in both mitigation and adaptation. Specific thematic areas include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • GHG emission analysis
  • Climate projection and modeling
  • Climate change impact assessments
  • Agriculture, forestry and other land use
  • Low carbon development and technologies
  • Climate change adaption for key sectors (e.g. agriculture, urban, water)
  • Participatory approaches for climate change adaptation
  • Climate-induced disaster risk reduction and management
  • Carbon markets and financing
  • Economic analysis of climate change project proposals


Why do we do this

Two new global agreements have set a course for addressing climate change over the coming decades. In September 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Development Agenda, to be achieved through 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG 13 exhorts nations to "Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts" Three months later, the Paris Agreement on climate change was adopted at Conference of the Parties (COP21), aimed to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, and pursue efforts to reduce this further to 1.5 °C.

Asia is at the forefront in the battle against climate change. Meaningful progress towards meeting the global climate targets will be impossible to achieve without adequate action in Asia. Despite its vulnerability to climate change, Asia appears to be poorly equipped to address this imminent threat. There is a need to develop the capacity to prepare 'bankable' mitigation and adaptation projects based on appropriate technology that are capable of attracting domestic and international finance.

In light of the existing national plans for tackling climate change -Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs), National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), National Adaptation Programmes of Actions (NAPAs) and more recently the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs)- Asian countries must now enhance efforts to address widespread capacity weaknesses. Capacity building programs are needed that can design, implement and monitor Asian solutions for Asia's climate change challenges drawing on regional as well as global knowledge and experience.

Expert Pool

We have over 50 technical experts at AIT working on various aspects of climate change, as well as a number of external international specialists, who together form a well-knit and robust team.

AIT Experts (Partial list)

Surendra Shrestha
Vice President for Development, AIT
Strategic resource mobilization

Mukand S. Babel
Hydrology and climate change

Visvanathan Chettiyappan
Waste management

Sivanappan Kumar
Energy and climate change

Jayant Routray
Disaster risk reduction and management

Rajendra Shrestha
Agriculture, forestry, and other land use

Yousir Badir
Green innovation and technology management

Shobhakar Dhakal
Energy-Climate Policy, carbon markets and
finance, Cities and climate change

Vilas Nitivattananon
Urban infrastructural and systems management

Abdul Salam
Renewable energy and energy efficiency

Oleg Shipin
Ecological engineering for climate change adaptation

Ahmad Mokbul Morshed
Community development

Sangam Shrestha
Climate change impacts and adaptation

Osamu Mizuno
International cooperation for climate change mitigation and adaptation

Manzul Hazarika
Multi-hazard risk assessment

Brahmanand Mohanty
Resource-efficient buildings, industries and cities

Victor R. Shinde
Urban water, and climate technology transfer

Mara Mendes
Climate Change Mitigation

International Experts (Partial list)

Bindu Lohani
Global Head, Climate Change Practice, Centennial Group, USA
Former Vice President, ADB, Philippines

Peter King
Senior Policy Advisor, IGES, Thailand

Robert Dobias
Senior Advisor, USAID ADAPT Asia-Pacific Project
Thailand

Kevin Rolfe
Formerly at WHO, Air Quality Management 
Formerly, the CEO of Environmental Services Australia
Member of the Oxford Round Table

Brian Baker
Former CEO, PIMCO Asia

Jeff McNeely
Formerly IUCN-Chief Scientist

Ram Shrestha
Formerly at AIT, Energy Economics and Planning

Prasad Modak
Executive President, Environmental Management Centre
LLP, India

T David Hodgkinson
Principal, Emerald Capital Partners, Singapore

Ely Ouano
former OIC-Director Environment Management Bureau
Philippines

Rao Y. Surampalli
President, CEO and Chief Technology Officer
Global Institute for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability, USA
Formerly at US EPA

Tae Yong Jung
Deputy Executive Director, Institute for Global Sustainability, Korea

Athena Ballesteros
Climate Finance Lead and Global Director, Sustainable Finance Center
World Resources Institute

Seng Chuan Tan
Regional Managing Director for Asia and the Pacific, Ramboll Environ
Formerly President of Institute of Engineers
Singapore