 we're going to try and bring the day to a start and we have a few more that are still signing in so there might be a little interruptions along the way but we apologize for that. I'd like to just start with a few simple house rules here just to inform people for health and safety reasons and please if there's any event of any fire or anything else exit through these two doors and as a staircase to the right of the elevators. Can you hear me? Just a little bit. Hello, is that any better? Okay, I'm gonna have to bend down a little bit. But yeah, please make your way out of the building down through the staircases and out to the front where we can meet and check everybody's okay. I just also want to tell you that for this event we have put everything on an app which everybody should register for so all of the agendas and the various presentations and contact details of all the speakers and attendees are on this app so you can communicate and connect with each other easily as part of the networking objective of the plan and for those who want to work on Twitter if you can hashtag us I think it's SEI science forum hashtag SEI science forum so please use that. I still see we have a few arriving but I will start to keep us on time. I would like to take the opportunity to welcome you all here to the 2017 SEI annual science forum. In particular I would like to welcome Johan Sjulostyna, our Executive Director from SEI, Chirsten Niblis, the Chair of the Board from SEI. It's a pleasure to have you both here. Professor Bundit, you're a born from the president of Chula Longcorn University and a new very welcome partner so thank you very much for joining us. Dr. Weijan Simachaya, the Permanent Secretary from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, pleasure to have you along with us today. And Charlotte Mam, the Head of Development Cooperation from the Embassy of Sweden, also a valued partner. And Dr. Stefano Fortunu, Director Environment and Development for UNS camp. And to all our distinguished panelists and to everybody else ladies and gentlemen thank you very much for coming. I'm delighted to have you all here today. It's a special event for us today. It's the first time we've held this SEI forum outside of Sweden so it's something new for us here and it's also an extra special that we're holding it with our partner in Chula Longcorn University where today we're also signing an MOU with them looking forward towards our future partnership. It's also their 100 year celebration so it's a very timely for the university so happy birthday. You don't look any older than 50 so it's okay. Today we intend to forge a stronger and deeper relationship by developing this MOU to encourage greater sharing and learning and supporting the research we need today to solve the challenges that we all face now and face in the future. I would like to thank all of the SEI Asia team who've put in a tremendous job to get the logistics and all of the agenda is ready for us here. I think they've done an amazing job so thank you all individually. And also for bringing us to what we hope is a generally a paperless forum and a plastic free forum so we're trying to practice what we preach. So you have it on your apps please use the apps and avoid printing and we have plenty of water and different stations here user glasses. So Asia is changing rapidly in so many different ways and yet at the same time it's changing slowly and on unsustainable path in many other ways. There have been positive changes in education, in the access to information, in infrastructure, economic growth and technology in many other areas all of which provides us with many opportunities to share to learn and to grow sustainably. However sadly this is not the reality. We face many challenges including climate change, population and migration and urbanization, surging energy demands, natural resource depletion, growing inequality amongst the rich and poor. The road we are currently on is simply not sustainable nor equitable. So we must change paths. We must look towards an equitable and sustainable future. We need to ensure gender equality and social equity throughout the Asia region and through great understanding and support of and delivery of the sustainable development goals which we've all signed up to. We must build greater capacity for resilient societies to face the extreme challenges in the uncertain times ahead and we also try to support us to our work on reducing disaster risk. We must address the pending issues of climate change and work towards understanding potential future scenarios and work with science to secure a fair and equitable future for all and particularly the commitments that we have within the Paris climate agreement all of which will be discussed in more detail here today. We must also focus on other issues such as urbanization and its impacts on people, their health and well-being, on pollution and air quality, on energy demands, on water use and management and a host of other critical issues which we hope to explore in some detail over the coming few days. We have to encourage inclusiveness in this dialogue. We have to make sure that we're able to support equitable governance in all of the resources that we need and this is not an easy challenge. Today we want to explore how SEI can use our evidence-based science to positively influence the policies that need changing. But we can only do this with you, our partners. We need to make sure that our partners and the valued partners within civil society, the private sector, the world of academia and indeed here with government where again I wish to thank the ministries from Thailand and also Taike for their warm support for us here and again SIDA for the ongoing support to our work not just here in the region but globally. And it's through these partnerships that we can help co-produce the ideas that we have to take forward to setting our research agendas and to looking at the various policy options that we need to suggest in order to make the difference and to ensure we steer our futures on a more sustainable path. As we expand our work in the region we need you to challenge us on the theories, on the questions and on our approaches so that we ensure that we are taking the right approach, the right questions for research now that will provide the right options for the future. So I challenge you. And here at the Science Forum this is a unique opportunity for us to gather those thoughts, the ideas and your insights to help us develop both our relationships, our research, strengthen the partnerships that we have and guide us to a more prosperous and sustainable future for all. So throughout the coming days we aim to better understand the future scenarios at play to challenge the current thinking and planning and to find options to help us support policy decision makers moving forward. So this is the simple challenge I set you all today is to speak up, engage with our colleagues and partners, start a discussion that may lead us on to further partnerships and interesting challenges and questions and help us develop the evidence-based science we need to bridge the science and policy divide. I look forward to the event. I look forward to speaking with you all during the course of the days. And please enjoy yourselves fully. Thank you very much. I would now like to call upon the chair of our board, Kirsten Niblis for her opening remarks. Good morning, everybody, friends and colleagues of SCI. It is really a great pleasure to see so many outstanding representatives from SCI partners and supporters and of course from SCI itself. At this science forum, which for the first time takes place here in Bangkok. It is a privilege for us to be able to arrange this at the Chulalongkorn University. And we are also very honored to have the president, Professor Yua Alporn, with us this morning. We value highly our collaboration with your university, which will be confirmed today by the signing of a memorandum of understanding to build a lasting and relevant partnership. A memorandum that should be very much alive and vigorous. Links to universities are crucial for all of SCI's centers. Our mission is to promote policy decision making that is based on research and evidence. Research is the key of a sustainable future. Without research, we would not be able to identify and understand the threats to our planet. We need natural science, we need social science, we need humanities. And research is also necessary together with technology to provide answers and solutions. Chulalongkorn University is strong in engineering sciences and engineers are hugely important in finding ways to prevent damage to the environment and to restore damage already inflicted. But we also need to build bridges from research to the policy makers. And we are very pleased with the ambition of Chulalongkorn University to play an active role in society. SCI has centers all over the world. The Bangkok Center is our foothold in Asia. Thailand was selected as the best country to operate in. And we have never regretted that. Our center here is in a very dynamic phase. We have an excellent new center director, Nia Lokona. And the center is growing thanks to fruitful interaction with key partners. We are very grateful to SIDA, the Swedish Agency for Development Corporation. And happy to see Angela Lottmann here. We are also very much indebted to Tika. And we also value our collaboration with the UNS Kappen. Are happy to see Dr. Futhio here. We appreciate highly also our very good contacts with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. And very pleased to see Dr. Sima Chaya, old friend of SCI here this morning. We look forward in the coming years to deepening and strengthening the relationship with your beautiful country. And to the benefit of our society and to take some steps on the way to the sustainable future that we all are working for. Thank you. Thank you very much, Sherston. And I'd like to briefly call Professor Bundit Uraporn for opening remarks, please. Good morning, everyone. Dr. Kostin Neblos, chairman of the board, SCI, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of Julalongot University, I would like to extend a very warm welcome to all participants of SCI Science Forum 2017. Especially to those who have traveled here from overseas. It is a great pleasure for Julalongot University to be a hosting partner of this important event with the world's most influential environmental policy think tank, the Stockholm Environmental Institute, or SCI. As one of the objectives of SCI Science Forum is to serve as a platform to build and strengthen links between researchers, stakeholders, and decision makers, and to offer the opportunity to find new ways to collaborate across disciplines and to develop innovative ideas. Partnership between SCI and Julalongot University in hosting the present forum marks an initial effort to linkage and collaboration. This even aims to foster. It also calls as the first activity after the signing of the memorandum of understanding between the two institutions, which will take place right after the opening panel discussion session. SCI and Julalongot University have, in fact, enjoyed successful academic cooperation for over a decade. This memorandum of understanding chose our commitment to closer and deeper partnership, which involves collaboration at both strategic institutional and individual operational levels. It also comes at a very important time in a year of centennial celebration of our university, a time when we are looking forward to the second century of more tangible positive impact on society, not only domestically, but also internationally. After the signing of this MOU, we expect to see more joint research programs which help address issues facing our society. In a decade ahead, many challenges are waiting here in Asia, and perhaps also elsewhere, comprising climate change and disaster, environmental degradation, and natural resource pollution that come with urbanisation, conflicts that arise from inequality or intolerance. This forum provides a great opportunity for researchers, decision makers, and other stakeholders to come up with ways to tackle those challenges together. As a comprehensive university with expertise in diverse disciplines, ranging from science and technology to social science and humanities, we look forward to working with you in the years to come for a resilient and equitable future for all. In closing, I would like to wish you a productive meeting and every success in your endeavour. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your welcoming remarks, and we look forward to our next 100 years together. What a marriage. Okay, on with the show, we want to make sure that we're trying to keep on time today, so I would like to call on Dr. Chianis as the lead for the opening session, Understanding Enhancing Science for Evidence-Based Policy, towards Equitable Resilience and Sustainable Future for all. Dr. Chianis. Thank you very much, Nile, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is my great pleasure to be the modellators of this very important opening panel discussion. The title of today's session is How We Could Enhance Science for Evidence-Based Policy Towards and Equitable Resilience and Sustainable Future for All. I think this session comes very timely. As you know, Asia has been transformed rapidly in the recent decades. We have very fast and high economic development growth, cooperation growth, and also most of the time we look at urbanization. This is something happening so fast. So most of the time this kind of change actually has transformed or changed the landscape in society. And we could see that a lot of people's livelihoods has been improved. However, we cannot avoid impacting the environment and sometimes widening the gap in the society. How can we make this better? How we can support the country leaders to continue to grow, but then without impacting so much to environment and make so big equality in the society? So we have five great speakers today who will help us and suggest the way forward how policies and science could really inform the policy for a more sustainable future. May I invite the first panelist to be on the stage, Professor Bandit Er-Tong from Jua Longan University. He's the president of Jua Longan University who kindly hosts ACI for almost 10 years. The next panelist to be on stage is a national art mom, head of development cooperation, the Embassy of Sweden, Thailand. So CIDAS has been supporting ACI for a very long, long time. And we are very privileged to have her to be a wonderful speaker on the stage. The next speaker, Dr. Vichan Simachaya, permanent secretary of Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Monterey. Dr. Vichan has been a great supporter to ACI and also sustainable medical research network. He's not only giving the opening speech like this. Sometimes he gives us a lecture on how the researchers could communicate better to the policy makers like him. So you can see how he will speak today. And then we learn a lot from him. The next speaker from UNS cap, Dr. Stefano Fortu, director of Environment and Development Division. So we have a very good cooperation with UNS cap recently and also we hope to do more in the future. The last but not least speaker, my dear friend, also Dr. Osa Gagler, Svartling, research directorate from ACI who is flying from Stockholm for this event. Please give a big hand to all speakers. Today, please take these panels as the opening and then feel free to actively participate in the discussion. So this panel will not help us answer the big questions to the world audience, but actually will help me as a mother to answer a few questions of my son. Recently, our house was flooded and then many people need to walk through the flood and some people drive a car, some people ride a bicycle, some people take a motorcycle. My son asked why people take different episodes for doing this. He was he's seven years old. And I say because people have not enough money, sometimes they're poor, sometimes it's their choices. And then he asked how many are the poor now and how will be the poor in the future. I couldn't answer him with the confidence. And he sometimes asked me what will be like in the future. So as a mother, I have to tell him something, but then the way I tell him, I say, oh, let me find some statistics and I will tell you at least for the time being for the current stage. But how about the future? I'm so lucky to have the great speakers who are leading on many aspects here to help me answer my son. We have the policymaker who can make a good policy. We have donors and so they're in partners who provide the fund to many good initiatives. And we also have the world leading research, academic and also kind of to do good research to inform the society. So let's see what is the first question today, that the first question that I would like to ask the panel to help me answer my son is what will the future look like for Asia? So consider what are the challenges, what are the opportunities when we look forward to the next 10 and 20 years. Could you tell me how can I explain my son? So this question to all the panelists and I actually request them to prepare only one photo originally and then there's some negotiation. Can we do one slide instead? Yes. Let's see the first slide from whom. So who this slide belongs to? Can you pick your microphone and please explain? How could you imagine the future of Asia so big with eight photos? Please pick up your microphone. Short as a policymaker like to hear a very short message. Good morning everyone. It's my great pleasure to be here. Actually they asked me to provide one photo but my responsibility in the Ministry of National Resource and everyone cannot explain by one photo but yeah okay I said to her okay I have one photo but inside I going to put many photo inside but she says okay. You can see here our challenge in the near future climate change is very important uncertain problem that I think as in Asia going to facing that problem how we ready to dealing with the problem also very very important. In Thailand right now we also develop our 20 year strategy for protecting natural resources and environment. Climate change is one of the issue that we are going to work with. Since you are still quite young I going to explain the simple way you can see here when you talk about the Asia or even the ASEAN what is the problem? How research can help to solve that problem? I can say that in our region for the basic or for the common problem we still facing for example people Sweden may not necessarily to talk about the garbage management but for our country for our region garbage is very important. If you are in Bangkok a couple of days ago we have facing with the flooding. The major cost of flooding is also the garbage. There is the approximately the garbage in the canal in the water is allow 20 tons per day just by we are facing the problem. Why people are not aware that? That's also behavior also very important. When we talk about the future of Asia connectivity is also very important. First we start with economic development tied to fuel gap especially for the property eradication also in the region we concern but moving towards for the property eradication economy is very important but when people talk about economic most of the the region when we try to increase our GDP natural resource and environment is very important how we utilize that to increase our income is very important just why the utilizing protecting and preserve environment is very important. You can see here is the sustainable development goal not just only the country but the region and the world have to move forward to meet the sustainable development goal in the year 2020 in Thailand especially in the Ministry of Natural Resources and environment we are also taking care of the five sustainable development goal including water, including the land and the marine environment and climate change, sustainable consumption and production and biological diversity is also the key issue that right now we set our target how we can move to our target for protecting the environmental and natural resources in our country for example I can give you some example for the forest cover right now we have the forest cover around 32 percent but the government is making a plan to again for the next 20 years. Sorry, can you wrap up? Can you wrap up? Yeah, very good. I think my son already confused. 40 percent for the whole country and you can see here that is the common environmental problem for Asia and even for Thailand and for other countries in the region we are also going to move forward but how we deal with the common problem and really for uncertain pollution problem or the climate change in the near future is very important. Thank you so much. It sounds the future so scary. At least for my son he loves marine animal like to go aquaculture like aquarium so much but here we have a big task in the future. Let's move on. Thank you so much Dr. Vitan. Let's move on to the next photo. What is this? How can I explain him? This is a Stefano's future for Asia. Good morning from my side too. So yes I mean it took me some time to select just one photo and I mean very frankly I don't have kids but I spent an entire evening with my wife choosing the photo that we'll have here and I choose this because it encompasses three keywords that for me are very important for the future of Asia. The first one is that I hope you will agree I mean this is the facade of a building. This is the facade of a building and it's from an Asian country and I hope you will agree with me that this is something we can call a modern building. So one keyword for me is modernization. There's a lot of infrastructure in Asia. A lot of infrastructure that is connected to the sustainable development goals needs to be modernized and then there's a lot of infrastructure that needs to be built and needs to be modern and having modernized infrastructure means we need very good technology. So one important element is that we need huge technological advantages on the way we are managing resources on the way we are building infrastructure on the way we are doing our economy and our business to be sustainable. The second keyword is green which for me talks about environmental sustainability and what I like in this photo is that you will see the green it's embedded in the structure of the building. There is a kind of misunderstanding we need to have a tendency to think that environment it's aside this in the entire menu of sustainable development and this is not correct. We need to bend environmental sustainability into everything we do. So we need to embed environmental sustainability in economic policies, in technological policies, in research policies and what I like in this photo is that you see everywhere this green which is which is a real these are real plants it's not a kind of decoration. These are real plants in the building and it it's so cases you know to maintain such a kind of structure you also need an amazing management of your resources of your water of your energy of your soil because there's some soil there of your minerals of everything. So managing sustainable the natural resources it's an extremely important element for sustainability in Asia and the Pacific and actually if we look at the 2030 agenda we will see that there's a specific phrase that it's even above the 17 sustainable development goals that says that and that sustainability cannot be achieved without the sustainable management of natural resources. Now these two keywords you know the modernity slash technology and environmental sustainability were very much I think explicit in this photo you can see it. There's another element that I will call it a little bit implicit. This building has a lot of glasses and for me when I hear the word glass immediately the the keyword that comes to my mind is transparency. So I think future development in Asia needs to be transparent and transparent means three things. First of all needs to be inclusive in it needs to include everyone everybody needs to express the needs. Second it should be integrated we cannot have a transparent inclusive development if we just focus on one aspect and the third it needs to be based on partnerships. So my future for Asia is I want to see Asia that it's modern, embeds environmental sustainability in everything and is doing this in a transparent way. Thank you. Thank you. So we need a combination of glass and also clean. Thank you so much. So let's see the next features of Asia what we look like. So this sounds promising so could someone explain me what is this? Thank you I will try to do that and good morning everybody. First I would like to start with that the rapid economic growth in Asia has been very positive to lift many people out of poverty and an opportunity is that the economic growth is predicted to continue in most part of Asia so the challenge here is to make it sustainable promoting human rights and the environment. So the links between environmental sustainable development human rights and equality are clear in Asia and that is especially for people living in poverty. Environmental and climate problems affect people's lives and rights such as the access to food access to water sanitation and health and another challenge is the democratic deficit and lack of respect for human rights that hampers people's ability to demand accountability and to contribute to the dialogue and decision making for more sustainable development. It is also a challenge that there are major economic differences between countries and sub regions and large inequalities within countries. So an opportunity is to improve cooperation within countries but also between countries for more inclusive development and improved regional cooperation to address trans-boundary issues. So these pictures illustrate the process for development plans and decisions in the future. So the process is open and transparent with clear rules and good laws made by the government. These rules and laws are based on good scientific facts produced by independent researchers. Civil society is informed and engaged in the process and is able to participate and influence and private sector behaves responsible contributes to sustainable development and respect human rights. Thank you so much. This sounds like ideal society whereas I'd like my son to live with. So let's move on to the another option for the futures of Asia. Someone making a little bit mean for me nervous we see something here. Thank you very much. I think from these pictures you can see that I put some challenges based on the facts that our world is now approaching more and more aging society and especially in Asia. You can see that the ratio between the people aged 65 and more to the people of the age under 65. This ratio will be increasing in most countries in Asia. So I think the fact is that we are approaching aging society and as the moderator mentioned to her son that when we talk about poor the words of poor what does it mean when we talk about poor on wealth or poor on health or some others. I think with the aging society and when we take into account the new technology development I think there are challenges and opportunities in themselves. For the the aging society how can we make our society not poor but more happy or happier and that is I think the keywords and the key issue that is very challenging to our society. The other picture may show us about the resource and environment issue that is also very important. We know that when people get wealthier we consume more and with the more consumption we have more impact in terms of negative impact and especially to the environment and on top of that we know that when we talk about poor or rich it creates the inequality in society and that is also very challenging but the problem is that all these challenges how can we turn it to to be more to be happier not poorer. I touch upon the technology especially on the digital technology or Internet of Things or robotics or artificial intelligence or technology. We need to accept that when new technologies come in it destroys some jobs but also but at the same time it creates new jobs new opportunities. So the society needs to adapt themselves in advance not just only wait for the time it comes otherwise too late. When I talk about robotic artificial intelligence and Internet of Things we can see that there are a lot of things to to be adapted and also more opportunities opened up especially on the new way of behavior of society we need to implement the technology properly and we need to adapt ourselves like for we know that some jobs we will destroy but it creates some more opportunity jobs like when people get wealthier we tend to be more leisure working time working hour maybe decreased it so the jobs that are concerned more working intensive or working hours intensive will be needed to adapt themselves far in advance thank you very much. Thank you I think the keyword for this photo is how we can turn classes into opportunities and then we can go to the hospital without any fear so that's very interesting so let we move to the last but not least slides this is looks very comprehensive so Dr. Asha trying to explain Asia in 12 photos she told me that this not really cover a whole thing they said I told her this is very good already you have very good coverage you have a highest number of photos in your slide so can you please explain how we can deal with the situation. Thanks for inviting me and it's a privilege to represent SCI here and I believe I'm the only one not working in the region so I've been following the developments from a some distance yes this is quite ambitious and I'm going to try and run to them quite quickly but I think they reflect the what I see as the main opportunities and challenges in the region so picture one is about poverty in my in my view so which I think is still the biggest challenge and we despite economic development over the past decades I think there's still and we're still facing unequal distribution of wealth increasing inequalities such as gender inequality and there's a trend towards increasing urban poverty high levels of migration and impacts on environmental well-being and picture two and three is about well climate change and natural disasters which I think will continue and hit the region hard unfortunately and it's causing enormous human environmental and economic losses and it reflects what a bit of cities in Asia including poor water sanitation poor flood management systems and so on and then the picture the second row is these reflect the modern side of Asia modern lifestyles new consumption patterns and also asias we are heading in technological development but also there are negative trends when it comes to rapid urbanization environment degradation traffic poor air quality health related aspects obviously and also challenges achieving more sustainable production and consumption and resource efficiency and then we have yeah we go to the bottom these are yeah a bit of contrast to the what I just talked about this represents the rural traditional Asia which is very rich in biodiversity however there is an increase in vulnerability of ecosystems it's extremely high and there's increasing pressure on land and forests which poses threats to food security at least while also facing rapidly increasing global and regional food demand and then we have the one bell to one road which is about your political developments so when it comes to future and the opportunities I'm looking at this third row which is about regional global policy agreements the regional forum on sustainable energy and technology and the SGD process and also the Sendai framework for climate for disaster risk reduction so we're missing the one on Paris agreement of climate change here yeah thank you Arthur sorry to need to cut you off so it seems that we have a lot of challenges that we need to face but also positive trends however you can see here we have many global and regional agreements that try to tackle with the situation and now very important question I need to answer the next question to my side someone can move here okay so let's see the next question is considering considering this phenomenon the futures quite diversities in Asia and also the regional international capacity in agreement and societal behavior are we ready to address the problems challenges in the future can we confirm our kids and next generation that you will have beautiful idea society to live it so what I have asked the panel is we have the smiley face and also the sad face here you can only please pick up one side don't do this okay so and I asked few colleagues sitting below there Johan you have one of them and Dr Hoa so we will you can take a deep breath and you will tell us what I should tell my son are we ready one two three and then you turn the side out right the one that you pick is the one that you leave the side that side out one two three wow I can't believe so we have majority say no and we have 40% say yes how can I go back to talk with my oh but we have more balance here we have two more and one like sad face okay now we need to take a fight so can I ask the participant to help me I cannot say it just neutral it can be anything to the futures of Asia if you believe that we are ready can you show your two hands no one feel crap five times so loud five times I count about 10% so it says that we are majority believe that we are not ready yet despite many effort so the next question is why so can I ask someone who say we're ready to give us a hint why we are ready to do this ladies strong yes we can definitely I think we can have it handle the challenges if we increase the cooperation across the region and find platforms where different stakeholders can meet and discuss and find common solutions we need more cooperation we work far too much in silos on often protecting our own interest we have to be open and inclusive and work together and I think that is the key and the Swedish development regional development cooperation in Asia and the Pacific supports several regional organizations and mechanisms for cooperation and we encourage our partners to cooperate with other organizations both within the same thematic area that they are active in but also with other organizations and especially we encourage cooperation between the environment and human rights organizations and in line with this as some of you know we also host an annual workshop to which we invite our partners and other stakeholders to work together and co-create around important issues like gender equality business and human rights anti-corruption and similar issues and during the last workshop it has become evident to us and everybody I think that we need to work more on human behavior to achieve behavior change for all of us thank you so thank you so much now we have representative the side sad face to say why we are not ready thank you I say no we're not ready yet because of most of us especially in developed big country we still need the comfortable lifestyle and consume a lot of sheep and short-term services and product we need to use more natural resources for our development despite we need technology innovation to solve that problem especially cannot affordable in developed big country but if developed one country support us research you mentioned is also very important lastly you just mentioned behavior link to education is very important in our country already mentioned people just told the carpet and flooding in the city thank you that's very interesting so we have two kind of extreme suggestion about a future we are ready or not so the next question is even majority here say we are not ready but we have some good suggestions so let us move on to the next question to the panel so can you someone please change for me to the next slide it doesn't work the next question considering the work that you're doing in cooperation with SCIs and other institutes what will be your recommendations in terms of science and policy support to help be designing and improving the future some of them from what say we are not ready some what say we have some very good future for our society so maybe let's start and because I shall already mentioned about the future do you want to add more or about the suggestion what we could do more thank you yes I can say a little bit about our role as the Swedish Development Corporation and the Swedish Embassy here in Bangkok that is handling the regional Swedish cooperation in Asia and the Pacific and the mandate for us is to contribute to strengthen the ability of regional actors to deal with transboundary challenges and opportunities in the areas of human rights democracy gender equality environment and climate change but we also have the mandate to support research cooperation with this within these areas and this means research capacity research production and innovation which can be understood as the research results that come to use in policy so we strongly believe we need more evidence-based decision making and to get the evidence we need policy relevant research research that take into account gender and human rights perspectives to provide a solid base for policymakers there also need to be proactive ways to make researchers and policymakers meet and work together not only delivering knowledge one way but co-creating for maximum relevance it is also very important to take into account the aspects of academic freedom academic freedom and open communication in findings hypothesis and opinions lies at the very heart of research and provides the strongest guarantee of the accuracy and objectivity of research Swedish research support has a clear proof for and human right focus including gender equality and aims at a straight addressing the power and knowledge in balance between high and low income countries and we believe this is essential in order to reach a more resilient and equitable future for all thank you not obi-chan you have very short yeah very short thank you very much i think the the science policy we we need to make a stonk a bit how we we link together especially researcher some researchers they just want to to research something they are really interested but put in the shell but policy you have to ask policy what policy do we need especially to different the policy to solve the problem in developing country many common problems still need the the policy and the important thing is translate the scientific information to the public in general and also to the policy decision making is also really important some researchers just put in really informative scientific information but the decision making sometimes they're really difficult to understand but i think it's really important if we can like to find some key area common area that the both policy and research i think research the outcome from from from the the research will be really useful for decision making and for dipping the the crunchy answer who thank you very much so stephanos you like to say shortly one minute um i would i would have three specific recommendations one is about making more research improving what is the role of sustainable management of natural resources into the entire development process and i think we need very strong research to showcase that there are limits on using natural resources and that's uh what we are using today we will not have it available for the future so we need this this balance between what i will call to to have the borders between growth and development because we have an understanding and i think it's a false understanding that development means growth but this is not correct development needs growth but growth doesn't means development anytime and there's a lot of growth that actually does not lead to development the second recommendation would be um we need to find to have more research on technologies and policies that they will allow what we'll call the coupling of resource use from economic growth and we have very good business cases right now that they are still on the pilot phase and i think we need more research on how this pilot business cases on resource efficiency could be what i will call the future business as usual way and the third we need to find out and i think this is a little bit sensitive we go back to the club of from that talk about the limits to growth and really need a serious discussion between policymakers scientists and international institutions to to understand what are the limits to growth and we do have environmental limits we do have social limits and we need to see them in order to overcome them thank you so much we have good suggestions for policymakers and also domain partner here let's hear the last one back from research and economic institutions how you would really respond to the questions and also your suggestion from our friends here so based on the previous suggestions i think the university should focus on the two key things more the first one is on the knowledge creation and research and the other one is how to bring upon all this research and knowledge to social contribution so by doing so i think the university need to do two key things one is we need to sharpen our focus that means the research and knowledge that we have been doing for many years we need to sharpen it to really serve what it needs is there is no time to just waste and doing something not useful that means we need to put more focus on what we are doing and at the same time we need also to integrate several people from several disciplines to work together to create or innovate new things to serve the changing world thank you very much thank you that's very important statement for all students and also ourselves as researchers so how about also what you would respond yes what i do i say from a sci perspective uh thanks for really good recommendations but take them to our heart um i think well we need to reach out to change makers in the region and help them i mean we obviously can't drive the process ourselves we're here to support and i think sci asia is growing very rapidly in a very positive way so i'm very optimistic about the center's role in the region and also many other centers are working a lot in asia have a lot of competence and expertise from from work in the field as well so i think it says very well positioned to make a contribution um through our niche and mandate and approach and expertise in bridging science uh policy and also practice um and to build a capacity among boundary partners and stakeholders of the region and we can combine this regional expertise with the more global um competence and expertise we're having greater network in the region and there's quite a few interesting projects going on like salmonet in the region which is about enabling supporting local actors and also other work being done at the sci york center in the region as well so and there's more to come i hope we look forward to collaborating okay so thank you so much for all panelists it will be really hard as job for me to summarize this first discussion but i think i have about three key messages to tell my son the first is it seems like the future of asia in the view of great leaders here on the stage and also majority of what is been here feel asia will remain to be a legion for diversity there will be a lot of things happening positively and a lot of challenges that we are facing despite our current effort many global agreement regional agreement we seem not fast enough to address emerging challenges and future challenges and what we need to do here we got a lot of good suggestion we need to be creative we need to cooperate more we need to be innovative how to turn classes into opportunities this is not the task of the great leaders who are on the stage here but the task of everyone in this room and also including those who are living in this planet in asia to make sure that we have futures asia which is very resilient equitable and also sustainable for all the next generation and i would like to give this opportunity to invite all audience here to give a big hand for all wonderful speakers on the stage this is for that insight and suggestion and commitment to continue supporting the good initiative in the future and also give big hands to yourself for your commitment to do a good work that you need to be to do whatever the role you have and i will tell my son you have you have to do your assignment and homework and you need to be a good student thank you so much for your attention thank you thank you dr charanas for a very interesting debate there um we're just going to have a quick change on the on the stage here we're getting ready to sign the mo u with professor uh bundit and with johan john if you could join us on stage as well please um we'll get that ready now professor urpo could could you sign my paycheck at the same time please so professors thank you very much for this mo u and i would just like to take this opportunity also to personally really thank you and the university for ten years of really good collaboration but also for the opportunity to be here as your premises today and you have told me now many times this morning that you only signed mo u that you expect really be something with where you work with later on so we have a lot of expectation right now to deliver on the mo u so thank you very much thank you very much i would like to take this opportunity to say a few words and uh i really thanks uh the sei for a long-term partnership we have been collaborating for many years and uh i would like to assure you that uh we would like to collaborate more and work together creating some impactful to the society and uh i'm sure that uh we are waiting for a bright future to come thank you very much okay ladies and gentlemen we're going to get on with the day um johan might be slipping away but we're going to call him back in a moment to give his opening remarks to us as well so johan the stage is yours thank you very much i'm just looking for the changer here so it's really great to be here in Bangkok in Asia and finally it it felt like i've reached the position where i should be signing mo u's you know and i i really think that what we signed today was obviously a lot more positive than what world leaders in another country currently is signing a lot right now this is about the future this is about collaboration uh let's see now if it works so uh i've been asked in about 15 minutes to give a very brief introduction to to you okay i made a quick error we need to take a photograph before professor can leave so so you can now see why some people become executive directors and some only center directors come on i'm learning from you so what orchestrate us okay that's okay are you feeling okay now are you ready great wonderful we're all in the limelights obviously so it's wonderful to be here it's really wonderful also to have this opportunity to have the first sci science forum outside of Stockholm in Bangkok Asia and i'm actually so pleased personally about this because when i came in a few years back in 2010 1112 this was to be quite honest a center in a lot of trouble we had a lot of challenges and the fact that we are now here today with a very strong team in place organizing this forum high quality that is absolutely astonishing so i know that you've been sitting for a long time let's give ourselves a big applaud for this achievement don't look so uncomfortable they did that you know in the old soviet union all the time they were applauding it's you know it themselves so anyway a very short presentation on sci and i'm gonna give it in a different way i'm not going to talk so much about the organization i want to give the environment we are working in you can say as chastain was stating in her opening remark science is so important to identify the challenges of society but increasingly and i think this is also the dna of sci at least i wanted to be the dna of sci is that science is also key for identifying the opportunities and the solutions of the future that's i think we've seen that already in the panel this is the organization it is about people it's about the future generations and this is what we do we focus on environment but we also believe in our vision that we need to have a sustainable and prosperous future for everyone we cannot have a prosperous future if we don't have environmental sustainability we cannot reach environmental sustainability if we do not have prosperous societies where people are included this is very obvious today in society where we have a challenge of connecting with people quite frankly all over the world our mission from the start in 1989 is to bridge science and policy that sounds nice and simple but it is of course very challenging it's about being relevant it's about providing information it's about providing facts scientific insights in a format that policy makers can use and find relevant and this is sometimes quite challenging this is the structure of the organization and as you can see we put three areas as equally important the scientific research the policy engagement and the capacity development all of these are three professional areas that are equally important in the organization and we have representatives here in the asia center but also from across the institute covering these areas but equally important is to have a well functioning organization and not least leads to also reach out into society so for instance communication is a key area for sci and we have a lot of our communications team here almost everyone is actually here in asia today so can you raise your hand also from the communications team they're all sitting over there okay that's good so communication is key to us but also all other areas to have a well functioning organization finance HR tools platforms etc is really fundamental for us to deliver these are our offices around the world we are about 230 people working in nine offices in six countries and we are to a certain extent reflecting the world and this is also critical diversity is in itself a strength if you want to address sustainability societal challenges you have to be as diverse as society we're close to 50 50 in terms of men and women we are about more than 55 nationalities today working in sci this is extremely important for us it gives different dimensions of different capacities different types of knowledge that we try to integrate and we do have challenges of course Justin you're absolutely right the science is about identifying challenges that we have that we are facing this is the reality of sci this is also part of our work and looking at asia we have heard already that so many of these challenges are real here this is one example i could give many many different examples of course but urban development being one of the key drivers of society today we are far from sustainable this is how most urban areas looks like today unfortunately we have an urbanization rate of about 50 million people per year in the world if we take one country in asia india they expect about 400 million more people living in cities by 2050 they are about to build infrastructure we heard about infrastructure before from our friend from u n s cap they're about to build infrastructure equaling more than all american cities in the next 35 years in the next 35 years if they build cities looking like this we will not have sustainable societies they might be climate smart because it's poor maybe but it's not a sustainable society and we know what the consequences are of urban planning failing and these are areas that sci are working with a lot looking at how we can avoid looking into unsustainable societies we have many people of very strong research looking at air pollution also as complement to climate change air pollution and climate change are of course integrated in many ways we know however that air pollution is also a driver for development today a push for a better life as well industrialization continues in a way that is highly unsustainable and it's not just about air pollution it's about natural resources also how can development actually lead to an industrialization which is also positive for society and also deal with environmental issues at the same time and massive expansion of agriculture all over the world connecting us not least between Europe and Asia for instance palm oil as one example but we can also look at soy we can look at beef we can look at so many different areas in terms of agriculture connecting us where there are huge challenges and we have soil degradation one of the scandals of the world one of the most precious resources that we have and something that we are also looking at a lot in sci trying to understand the processes but of course also what the solutions can be and soil erosion is a major challenge globally today if we are to double food production to 2050 which is the expectation this will not be possible if we continue to treat our soils in the way we are doing today the consequences of these are many and in terms of climate you are aware of it 2016 was the warmest year on measured record in combination with El Nino of course but still a quite dramatic increase and we have also then subsidiary effects of climate change such as sea level rise for instance and the consequences this will have for countries in the world you you are aware of the rapid urbanization that we have most urban areas are of course located in low-lying areas in coastal areas we are in one of those cities today the challenges are immense clearly so I could of course end the classical presentation here with the pictures that we see every day we saw them even in the panel these are moving a little bit but are the same same kind of pictures that we are seeing often and we could of course also you know communicate the doom and gloom of the political society so science tells us that the world is hopeless and policymakers agree and this was of course the situation in Copenhagen in 2009 where this picture is coming from a geopolitical system that couldn't respond to the challenges we had and delegations that were quite tired to be honest after many years of negotiations how many people were in Copenhagen in 2009 I know there are some of course do you recognize yourself yes not even the polar bear they had you know placed outside of the convention center was actually melting symbolically as it was meant to do because it was very cold that december in Copenhagen so we have an impossible future shayanis you can tell your son don't study don't care you know just rest have fun while it lasts or can we actually move forward and this is also about sci the opportunities six years after paris we had a completely different political situation not in the world I would say if you're looking at many of the conferences that have been successful the political environment has also been quite positive in 1992 we have the the fall the cold war ending in 2000 when we had a millennium development goals it was the new millennium everything was positive in 2015 despite challenge in the world the political system came together with finance for development with the end the the sustainable development goals and with the paris agreement so we know we can take steps forward and the sdgs are really quite amazing as a framework something that is really in the dna today of the organization and I'm fascinated to see how many countries cities companies are today using the sdgs as a framework for development and this is of course something that we also try to contribute with and support many actors how they can do that in an efficient way the transitions in terms of energy has been immense since 2009 and it's likely one of the drivers behind the fact that we managed to get an agreement in paris in 2009 leaders were still very worried about what a transition would mean the fact that we had to share the burden the costs in 2015 we had a completely different situation and if we just take one graphic to show the price of solar from Copenhagen in 2009 to paris in 2015 this is how it displays it's a very dramatic shift in the world that has happened and we of course hope that we've been part of this and I couldn't help selecting a short thing that came in the British media in April I think this is symbolic it's 24 hours in the country of the revolution industrial revolution producing electricity without coal I hope it's true and not fake facts but at least this is a symbolic and we will see these kind of developments in many parts of the world in a country where they are a few years back said we will never abandon coal this is what we could see and read read in the media in May this year so SEI is also part of driving the sustainability and the future we want to see finding the solutions trying to embrace development embrace opportunities that would take us forward not just looking at the challenges but also trying to understand and see how we can push opportunities one area that we are expanding into more and more is the private sector looking at business development innovation in business and unfortunately I would say we have some work still to reach out towards the private sector they are key drivers for development today and we have been working a lot in Sweden for instance with the Swedish steel industry four years ago they were deadly skeptical towards climate policies because they are the biggest contributor of emissions in Sweden today they are driving themselves and arguing that they will be CO2 free fossil free by 2050 that's the ambition they have so a rapid transformation also in the private sector is key and we start to see results and I will end with a couple of quick just demonstrating that we see results in 2015 this again was quite revolutionary more than 50% of the added generation capacity was actually renewables in 2015 nobody had really expected this and we can also see in terms of emissions in the last three years that we have maybe leveled out maybe leveled out this is only three years again the challenges are still there but we have to also embrace the fact that we are making progress in terms of commitments so as we also stated in the new climate economy where we collaborated with many different organizations this is an historic opportunity we have right now we have historic challenges we have historic opportunities there are clearly politicians working against this agenda so sometimes we have to also demonstrate that in their own countries development has actually bypassed their own mental mind so while they think they are still locked into the fossil society the future is actually already there according to their own agencies the job creation and the number of people working in the renewable sectors in the United States today are far higher than in the fossil industry so this is a development which is also extremely important for us and we are as the SCI of course doing everything right so this is the slide I more or less want to end up with the fact that we yes thank you very I didn't tell them to do that beforehand so why don't we do it again yes come on yes so in 2017 in January we got for the first time we were ranked as the number one organization in terms of environmental policy in the world and all my colleagues in here are really behind this achievement but not only them but also the partners that we have in this region and all over the world because this is also part of the SCI DNA it's about collaboration we can never solve this agenda if we do not work together this is why we're here today as Nile was saying in his opening use this day to really discuss talk, argue about things but also look ahead and see how we can find joint solutions so from one city to another thank you very much and I'll really look forward to the day Nile and I hope that we will have an inspiring day together thank you thank you Johan and I think you start us off with the inspiration so we'll keep going from there we're running a few minutes late but if you don't mind we're going to do five three five minute speed talks about some of the critical areas we're trying to develop and push forward in Asia before coffee break and then we go into the longer debates of the three sessions that we talked about so I just want to call up the first of the our new researchers in town Oliver Johnson is looking at five minutes into the energy situation in Asia thank you all good morning everyone my name is Oliver Johnson and I'm a senior research fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute I'm sort of transitioning I've been based at the SEI Africa office in Nairobi for four years now and moving now here to Bangkok which is an exciting opportunity and challenge for me as I look to lead the energy work at the SEI Asia office so as we've heard already this is an extremely dynamic region a lot of change has been happening over the past decades and expectations are that this these trends will continue as population may continue to grow economic growth continues and so this has major implications on energy systems which will be forced be required to adapt and to develop and grow to meet growing demand for energy so I've grabbed a few graphics from the IEA the International Energy Agency's Southeast Asia outlook from 2015 so at the moment I'll just speak to the Southeast Asia region and of course one of the major issues is meeting energy increasing energy demand needs over the next 20 to 30 years there is an expectation that much of this will also be met by continued on increased use of fossil fuels which has significant implications for climate change commitments at the same time many countries in the region still face challenges in addressing energy access so as Johanna put up SDG the SDGs SDG7 is about clean and affordable energy and so on the one hand we could the region could be meeting energy demand but it may not be equitably doing so so that's that's a real consideration and it needs to needs needs attention there are a range of policy options touted for how to meet increasing demand needs but in a in a cleaner way so we have sort of energy energy efficiency measures reducing inefficient coal but the challenge really is how do you do that given that some of the industries in the fossil fuel industry for instance have very very strong roots and there's a political economy issue in terms of changing the kind of way that the energy sectors develop and moving away from path dependency and of course the countries in the region each have different political contexts different natural resources to to exploit and they also have different histories and SEI has been working in the region on energy for for some time we've been working looking at issues such as incentivizing renewables mechanisms to incentivize renewables challenges of destabilizing existing energy systems gender awareness in a very traditionally male dominated sector and so the SEI Asia research agenda seeks to build on this existing work and build on our existing partnerships to develop new collaborations and explore new issues and ideas of co-produced new knowledge on energy issues and how to overcome them in the region to support policy and practice towards a more low carbon development pathway in the region thank you thank you very much Oliver and for anybody out there please feel free to get in touch with Oliver he's now based here we are very keen to try and work with partners on on this issue Steve is eager to go I can see him standing up there so Dr Steve Cindaby if you'd like to join us he's going to be looking at urbanization issues the slide change now it's the slide change my name comes up I stand up so I'm Steve Cindaby from York I'd like to thank this opportunity to start discussing a potential new initiative that we've been developing looking around urbanization issues we've heard a lot about that already and I have no slides so I shall just I'll talk my way through what the initiative's hopefully going to be about so okay brilliant we have some slides so we've heard already that urbanization is one of the key focuses around the SDGs it's got its own specific dedicated SDG but it touches on lots of the different topics across the different SDG goals and a key factor as we've heard from Johan this morning is partly around the quality of urban infrastructure and how that determines residents quality of life so this is a sort of Norman Foster leading architect and his views on that and this is one of the aspects that the initiative be touching on is about how infrastructure affects different people living in our cities and their quality of life okay so we know that urban environments are affecting people's health as they live in cities the one I particularly like to focus on is this last one coming up is around the mental health and well-being of people so the World Health Organization is now predicting that actually by 2030 mental health problems are going to be one of the leading diseases in our cities overtaking things like malaria so it's an increasing concern and I think we need to better understand how and who is being affected by the quality of our cities and how that's affecting their mental health and well-being but also can we learn anything about beneficial environments and spaces in cities that are actually promoting good health and well-being so what can we learn around what should we be including in our cities how should we be promoting their development so for me I'm a firm believer that residents are experts about their own cities that they know about their experience of living in their urban environment so a key factor of what we're proposing in the initiative is around this idea of co-creation of knowledge and co-design so asking the people themselves about their knowledge of the city and how it operates and how they feel it's affecting them but I think we can also start to use more novel approaches and these are things we've been trialing in York using a different sensing technology to actually understand the physiological relationship between urban environments and how it affects people's health and well-being so these are sensors looking at how it's actually affecting your brain activity as you move around the city and I think these more novel approaches are things that SCI can start to bring on to city development in Asia and Africa as well to understand how those environments are affecting the people that live there another aspect is actually getting citizens themselves and co-producing knowledge about their environments so in York we've been working a lot with our Nairobi partners in SCI developing citizen science approaches to understand urban environments and their effect on health so one of the simplest things or simplest from my point of view is understanding something like air pollution measures and getting local residents involved in actually collecting new data about the quality of their environments using citizen science monitoring and then you can also start to include other factors such as heat mobility and that interaction between the social and the environmental so the connection between how people are using their cities and how that's affecting their health but also the interaction with the environment so hopefully that's given you just a brief flavor about potential elements that are going to be involved in the initiative the other elements we're developing are our modeling and also governance but we'd like to connect all these different approaches together about looking at the impacts of infrastructure on health then co-creating and monitoring urban environments and linking that into modeling and governance systems so that's what we'll be developing over the next few months hopefully with colleagues in Africa and Asia so thank you thank you Steve look forward to some exciting work there and then finally I'd like to call on Chusit there you are Chusit is ahead of our water and resource management team here so thank you now Sawadee krap good morning my name is Chusit I'm a program manager and water cluster leader in Asia Center so let's talk a little bit on about water-related activity in Asia a picture say a thousand words but I will not show you only a picture so I'll show you like a series of photos that can describe our water-related activities in our center so this is like a photo of a group expert meeting together with the local people in Chinvin area in Myanmar so we try to understand what are like the issues related to drought management in the area together with our partner in Myanmar MEI Myanmar Airmen Institute so together with a handsome guy you see that Nile together with also like a beautiful lady Shanice so we have organized a booth in in Myanmar the big event called World Water Day so we have like our booth to show our activities in Myanmar in 2015 I guess and also like we work together with Portion Control Department thank you Dr. Vijan that we are highly support us on the capacity building together with our local partner in Myanmar Myanmar Airmen Institute to build their capacity related to water quality monitoring and also we work together with relevant agency to understand what could be like potential future scenario so that we can support a real basic management so you see that there are different time frames and we discuss together with the local partner on what should be like future development plan we organize stakeholder consultation meeting together with local partner in Myanmar so that we can discuss about what will be like structure and roles responsibility of river basin organization I will stop now so like I said this is already like 6,000 words so there are also lots of activity also we do modeling Shanice was also interviewed by local media on the impact of mining and also different development in Qinbin on water quality so now come why we have our vision on safe and secure water resource for present and future generation in Asia with the recent rapid economic development dialogues of pressure on limited water resource in the region and how can we manage this limited resource in the river basin and with like uncertainty how can we address that this photo was taken from our trip on the way to a remote area in Qinbin in Myanmar and we were stuck there for a couple of hours because there there was a construction so how can we address this so our mission is to enhance the capacity of all sectors household industry agriculture energy and in Asia to achieve water security and practice a sustainable water resource management so we believe that conducting a research at the ground and carrying our demonstration could also help people in the region to build that capacity and promote sharing experience and and lesson learn for water management for all water users our objective three main conduct evidence-based research to support and promote efficient making for achieving water security and sustainable water resource management to strengthen multi-stakeholder policy engagement in decision-making process and enhance capacity of water user at all level in integrated water resource management so this is our potential but we partners at different levels starting from regional level so we plan to collaborate with ASEAN Secretariat and working group on water resource management ASEAN Climate Resilient Network Mekong River Commission Lantan Mekong Corporation Serbia Mekong and other INGO at national level so we plan to work with different departments under Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment for example Department of Water Resource Department of Meteorology and Hydrology and Pollution Control Department again thank you Dr. Vichar Ministry of Agriculture we plan to work with irrigation department apart from that we also want to work with water related disaster issue so we plan to work with different department under Ministry of Interior which focus on disaster management and also our auto university and academic institute at sub-national level we plan to work with local government and also river basin organization and committee-based committee so expected outcome free expected outcome that we aim for the next three years so open planning and decision-making process to address uncertainty into planning and to strengthen the linkage between local knowledge science policy and try to address our challenges issue related to water resource management the last one to strengthen institutional capacity for local national stakeholder for integrated water resource management thank you thank you very much Jucit I know these five minutes don't do justice to all the incredible work that each of these teams are doing so please do take a little bit of time to get to know them talk to them and explore what they're doing it was just an opportunity to try and expose a little bit more of the work that we're doing before we go into a little more in-depth in the particular sessions after coffee break so with that