 Okay, so just to give you a background on this event that we're having before we get into our welcome remarks, the Mekong region grapples with sustainability challenges linked to water, energy, and exchanging climate. Rapid development has led to growing disparities, disproportionately affecting the region's marginalized communities. These vulnerable groups bear the brunt of water, energy, and climate problems due to their strong reliance on natural resources. To address these complex issues effectively, we must enhance and expand collaboration among various organizations and initiatives. Today's regional roundtable seeks to close knowledge and policy gaps while actively pursuing equitable solutions that prioritize justice for communities and ecosystems. To welcome everyone in this event, I would like to call on stage our first speaker, Dr. Changrak Tinnagul, the dissemination technical officer expert level from the Department of Climate Change and Environment. Thank you, Dr. Jemai Edgar, Development Consular Australian Embassy Bangkok, Mr. Nile O'Connor, Center Director, SCE Asia, Dr. Sulachai Wan-Gaew, Director of Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Jula Longkorn University. Distinguished representatives, ladies and gentlemen, Sawadee ka. First of all, I would like to express my appreciation to the Stockholm Environment Institute, SCE Asia. SCE Asia Center for inviting me to join this meeting and to share my perspectives on Thailand's climate policy and actions. Ladies and gentlemen, evidently, the impact of climate change on human survival and well-being ecosystem and the economy has become more intense on religions around the globe. Over the year, the global community has stepped up its efforts to collaborate and take necessary action to tackle climate change, particularly through the adoption of the 2030 Agenda to Sustainable Development and Party Scheme, with the aim to limit the global average temperature rise to below two degrees Celsius, or even better at 1.5 degrees Celsius, and to move forward, the climate resilient development to speed up the pace of climate actions, capacity building of all sectors, along with adequate predictable and accessible support for climate change mitigation and adaptation are required. Like other country, right alternations, Thailand is not moved to the destructive and unpredictable impact of climate change. In 2021, Thailand has ranked the ninth most vulnerable countries to long-term impact of climate change. In addition, climate change cost us over a trillion baht in socioeconomic loss over the past two decades. As a resource, Thailand must exert every possible effort to tackle the multi-dimensional impact of climate change. At COP26 World Leaders Summit, Thailand announced continuous ambition targets which aim to reach carbon neutrality and net silo greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and 2065, respectively, to get together with increase of the 2030 NDC up to 40% upon adequate international support on finance, technology and capacity building. This clearly demonstrated Thailand's strong determination to join the global goodwill to fight the threat of climate change and emphasize the importance of this issue on the top national agenda. To achieve the aforementioned target, the Royal Thai government has integrated climate change into its national development agenda, including the 20 years national strategies, masterpan under the national strategy, the national economic and social development plan to ensure a current move toward environmental failure and climate failure growth in all sector and levels. Three main goals include a long-term greenhouse gas emission reduction consistent with economic, social and environmental development enhancement of climate adaptation and promotion of climate-friendly investment in public and private infrastructure development, the provision of economic incentive for relevant sectors. These policy frameworks are the key drivers of domestic climate action in achieving Thailand's contributions under UNF-3C. We also developed climate change masterpan NDC roadmap for mitigation and national adaptation plan to be the comprehensive guideline for policies implementation at sector and sub-national levels. Beside this setting of those targets and policies, Thailand informed the climate change act to ensure natural implementation and engagement of on stakeholders, which lead to more concrete, tangible and enhanced solutions. We strive to enhance mitigation and adaptation measures to implement on-ground. Climate change is no longer a distant treat. Loan the individual cannot single handily deal with climate change, but collective effort from every individual and practice together to foster transformative change at domestic and international level are carefully needed. Now is the time for solidarity. Let us all take action together to overcome this climate change challenge because only when we are united together is possible. I would like to introduce myself that I was born in Udon Thani. We are all related in the northeast of Thailand. I work with the collaboration with NGO in the first stage that I come to work. I linked because from the Department of Climate Change and Environment is just a newborn last month. So from the Department of Environmental Quality Promotion that work related on the area around Thailand. So we merge with the policy section from the Office of National Policy. We merge together so the new organization under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. So it's like to blend together between policy and practice. So we very, very welcome to work with all groups around the project of the Mac Home River. So thank you very much to invite our organization to join this event. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Dr. Tinagul. I would like to share that this event will not be possible without the support of the Government of Australia. So our next welcome remarks. I would like to call Dr. Gemma Edgar, Acting Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of Australia in Thailand. Good morning, everyone. So thank you so much, Dr. Changrak. So interesting and important to hear Thailand's perspective. So thank you so much. Of course, I also acknowledge Dr. Surachai from Chula University who we up at the Hewasa. We're joining us on stage shortly and of course Niall from SEI, my good friend. But of course, most of all, really, I want to acknowledge the real diversity of people we have in this room today. I know we've got people from governments across the Mekong sub-region. We've got climate scientists in the room. We've probably got other types of scientists that I don't even know exist. We've got civil society actors. We've got development partners. We have a real diversity of people here and I think it's that diversity that needs to be acknowledged. So thank you for coming together and thank you for those who will join us on stage today as speakers. But those of you who are participants, equally important as today comes together. So I want to note that in recent years, we have seen stronger storms. We've seen prolonged droughts. We've seen intense bushfires and more frequent flooding. Absolutely, we've seen this in Australia. But we know that we are seeing this happening globally as well and also here in the Mekong sub-region. We know that climate change is affecting and will continue to affect all of us. But most especially we know that it will affect the most vulnerable people in our communities that includes women and girls, that includes people living with disabilities, it includes the poorest of the poor. The climate crisis though is a shared challenge and international cooperation is key to addressing it. And Australia is proud to join many others who have increased their 2030 targets. So our missions reductions target is now 43% below 2005 levels by 2030 and we've also committed $2 billion in climate finance for 2020 to 2025 to support our global partners, transition their economies and strengthen climate resilience. But of course we're not doing this on our own. We recognise exactly as Dr. Chonkrat just outlined, the ambitious targets that others such as Thailand are making. Thailand obviously has its net zero by 2065 target, very ambitious agenda. But despite these global efforts, we know the science is clear that we need greater global ambition and we need more effective implementation. As a longstanding neighbour and partner to Southeast Asia and the Mekong, Australia is really pleased to be able to work with the region to support climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. And that includes some of the work we're doing under the Mekong Australia partnership on promoting environmental resilience. And we're really pleased to be able to work with Thailand or to partner with Thailand on this agenda. Including engagements for example with the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and with BMA. I really hope that we'll be able to work quite closely with the Department of Climate Change and I really do congratulate Thailand on its establishment. I think it's really important so looking forward to continuing that partnership or growing that partnership. I also want to highlight that last year Australia has announced bid to co-host COP 31 in 2026 with our Pacific Island family. And we're really looking forward to working closely with our partners to design and deliver a COP that brings profile to the unique climate change challenges based by the region and to help accelerate global climate action. Because we know we need to work together to address the climate crisis. Everyone plays important roles. Experts, policy makers, practitioners, media all have critical contributions. Those of you in this room are absolutely critical to that and I really want to acknowledge and to make it clear how appreciative and how welcome your efforts are and how important they are to this. So thank you again for joining us. As Dr. Chonkrak said, if we are able to unite together, everything is possible. So thank you to SCI, thank you to Chula University for co-hosting this event but most of all thank you for joining us and thank you for your efforts. We look forward to stronger cooperation as we continue to combat climate change. Thank you so much. Next I would like to call Nyle O'Connor, director of the Stockholm Environment Institute Asia Center. I hope that's better now. Good morning everybody. It's a pleasure to have you all here. Dr. Tinago, it's wonderful to have you here and it's really as we've just heard, really great to hear about the development of the Department of Climate Change here in Thailand. So we look forward to working with you closer in the future. Our friend Emma from the Embassy, it's a pleasure also to be working with you and supporting this program. So delighted to have you and your team here as well. I think there's more from the region. And obviously Professor Surichai, a long supporter of SCI but also a leader within Chula Longkorn. So it's a pleasure to have you join us here today. But everybody else, it's critical that we have all of you as partners in this process moving forward. So very happy to welcome you to this forum today. So thank you for making the effort to come here. So I want to extend a warm welcome to everybody and to see as we gather here today to discuss the existential threat of climate change. And we're going to have a particular focus obviously on the Mekong region and Southeast Asia. It's an honor to stand here before you today to open a significant event where we'll aim to try and identify the critical elements of the regional response to the threat of climate change. And we'll also try and place this regional response in the appropriate global context since climate change demands actions at all levels of society within all the sectors and in all the global regions. We can solve it in just one place. The journey towards the global cooperation on environment and development started over 50 years ago with the Stockholm Conference. So that's naturally where SCI has got its name and we're proud to have developed from there. And 20 years later in 1992, the world adopted the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, our UNFCCC. And from that, it's helped then to work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, in which we have four authors at the most recent sixth report here with us today. So we're very happy and privileged to have four of you here today. So in this age of disinformation and climate denial, we're very proud to say that our meeting is also rooted in scientific evidence and builds on the task of bridging science and policy that lies at the heart of the SCI mission itself. Communications and dialogues are also crucial in the science policy process. So we're also very fortunate to have many people from civil society and indeed the media here today. We need all of you working together. This year marks another milestone regarding the evidence of the state of the climate crisis. Just last week, the UNFCCC released the synthesis report on the global stock take of the Paris Agreement. And this underscored the slow progress on the key goals related to mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage and the means of implementation, whether it's finances or technology transfer. So we still have quite a long way to go to achieve success. And meanwhile, as we look around us, it's also clear that climate change is no longer a distant threat. It's already here with us and we're facing it today. The consequences of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are already being felt whether it's in the form of extreme weather events, which we unfortunately see all too often in the media, rising sea levels, disrupted ecosystems. And all of this is clear that the cumulative impacts is on the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable communities. This is not acceptable. So if you do not take immediate and concerted actions, these consequences will only continue to intensify, affecting not only our generation, but obviously the generations to come because it's going to take a long time to turn around. So it's abundantly clear that we must act swiftly and decisively to limit the emissions and to prevent further warming. And at the same time, we must protect the vulnerable populations, develop and ensure we do all this in a just transition process to a sustainable future. This imperative to act and to act urgently is at the heart of our discussions today. Sometimes the enormity of the climate crisis can be overwhelming and sometimes it's easy to feel powerless as an individual. What can I do? But however, I think the collective actions driven by our partnerships is key to addressing this global challenge. And our collective responses to climate change in these crucial upcoming years will determine whether or not future generations will inherit a livable planet. It's quite stark. So the response of climate change requires an inclusive, all-of-society approach. With representatives from governments, businesses, academia and civil society and the media, we must unite in our efforts in light of the scale, scope and complexity of the global response to climate change. So we're all part of this solution and our collective actions are paramount. Close engagement with diverse groups of people and the communities is key to SEI's research approach which we implement across eight centers on five continents. And our global presence enables us to gather information like we're doing here today to share it with other centers and to try and support similar engagements in the world and gather global feedback mechanisms. So today we turn especially to the task of strengthening regional cooperation and fostering effective policy dialogue across to Mekong and Southeast Asia. And I think we have a unique opportunity to lead by example, all of us here in the room and to help create a more inclusive green transition process, one that is built upon shared visions and goals. And we can demonstrate the value of regional partnerships and transnational corporations in increasing capacities and in scaling up ambitions in the response to climate change while simultaneously we also need to deliver on our globally agreed sustainable development goals. So let's imagine a future where nations in this region fully cooperate to share their knowledge, their technologies, their facilitating partnership programs, they are accelerating progress towards sustainable low emission futures. We can be a part of that and it's a future where we stand in solidarity to protect the environment and to ensure no one is left behind. So in conclusion, the time for action is now and the responsibility lies with each of us here today. So today's discussions and collaborations will shape the path forward and together we can make a meaningful impact in the fight against climate change. So the insights from the scientists, the insights from the policy makers and from academia and from the business sector and indeed from civil society will give us an inclusive understanding of the situation and how we can try to address this moving forward. So once again I want to say a big thank you to all of you who have joined us here today and we look forward to enlightening the next few hours. So thank you very much. Thank you, Nile. And lastly, I would like to give the floor to Dr. Sri Chai Wungayo, Professor Emeritus and former director of the Social Research Institute of the Chulalongkorn University. Good morning, Svanteekap. I'm very honored to be a part of this event. As a personal friend of a few people who are here, I feel very happy that we are still alive. I am joking but I am serious. In the sense that we talk about not too distant climate change. We talk about more about health these days. But what we are really concerned is planetary health. Health of humans, health of non-humans and health of our nations and communities. So in that mood, in that feeling, I am very much happy to welcome all of you to our country, to our partnership conference today. As a part of Chulalongkorn University, I am also very much delighted to mention our partnership with Stockholm Environmental Institute. I am very much honored to meet again Dr. Gemma Edgar whom I met at Chiang Kong a few months ago at and a few network university meeting. So in the light of this partnership building from personnel and also organizational level, may I say that from the perspective of someone who has worked in the university, I am so much delighted to see how our bureaucratic system, our national government including Thailand is trying to make the issue more visible, more focused and more collaborative. But these are important steps in the very big sea of change that we are understanding that it demands so much to be effective. I am from sociology a field which is not so useful cannot make much money but it relates so much about how relationships can be healthy. How relationships between different sectors could be taken seriously. Dr. Jong Rak who mentioned about her past experience when we talk about the NGO sector among other non sectoral sectors in our societies and industries NGO if you allow me I would like to call it non-state actor and non-state action are much more demanded to be related to these working processes into the future coping with these challenges. But when we talk again about these non-state actors we are also faced with how society and state relations are to be more understood in a more healthier way dealing with our common challenges together. State society relations in our region and in the world why we have very high ambition to deal with global climate change and the SDG agenda. We all recognize that these several years they are serious evidence based research that make us understand that democratic recession recession not economic recession the democratic recessions and also democratic backsliding in other words are serious challenges in the global level and in several regions in the world. This is a global phenomenon as well so I would like to highlight this part while people talking very clearly about the shrinking space of civic society but may I at this end of welcoming you to highlight the necessity of science policy interface could be very much more important in the light of how to create interacting space which are most necessary and that cannot really be relied on national level alone and for that I think the global and regional level that several of us are here are working could be more tapped into this energy of collaboration into the future. So national level adaptation national level so I think the recent reports from the SDG as Dr. Nile O'Connor mentioned is very clear it's not very happy we are much much lacking behind in old aspects the worst part worsening part are more serious but some part are encouraging in the light of biodiversity biodiversity new agreements on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction there are new agreements as several of you recognize the Montreal Kunming framework and much are captured by the leadership of several scientific and also business industrial sectors but yet we do need not only this ambition ambitious words and framework we do need more mobilization of intellectual capital beyond the usual framework that we used to work and for that purpose may I highlight the importance of our meeting today in a few days that all of you have come from various work levels and very sectors but we do hope that we also from my experience we do hope that a more regional, a more global globally linked with national discussion and also making more multi-level engagement together across borders can make more sense together and highlight and make serious demands for regional policy institutions to be more active and more engaged I think many governments are very serious but they also need a lot of support and in that light I should like to end by saying that coming from a university I know a university also need to do a lot to work not in the usual silo type but more collaborative more cross disciplinary with all of you so with that may I also express my gratitude for your presence and your efforts to come here and look forward to more engaging states to next stages together thank you