Included among the distinguished regional experts at the 18 Dec. CNC Online Course virtual meeting were: Aneta Nikolova (UNESCAP); Professor Xu Tian (of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China); Professor Hiroshi Asakura (of Nagasaki University, Japan); Professor Greg N. Nishihara (also of Nagasaki University); Professor Ho Ngo Anh Dao (Ton Duc Thang University, Vietnam); Nur Syamsiyah (Universitas Airlangga, Indonesia); Professor Krisna Febrian (National Institute of Technology Malang, Indonesia); Professor Zul Itam (University of Malaya); Dr. Arlene L. Gonzales (Mariano Marcos State University, the Philippines); Professor Sivakumar Manickam (Universiti Teknologi Brunei); Dr. Anish Ghimire (Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand); Suraj K. Singh (Ace Institute, Nepal).
Individual experts’ backgrounds and specializations are included below, along with their reflections and recommendations, and issues raised during the Session Q&A.
Associate Professor Dr. Kitikorn Charmondusit, Dean of MU’s Faculty of Environment and Resource Studies officially opened the meeting.
“Your presence here underscores the importance of cross-border collaborations in addressing the global challenge of climate change,” he said. “This meeting reflects our shared commitment to advancing carbon neutrality through higher education sectors. Universities and schools are not only hubs for knowledge, but also catalysts for innovation and sustainable development. Together we have the opportunity to create a regional network that offers meaningful action, and transforms our campuses into living models of sustainability.”
“The primary objective of this meeting is to create a carbon neutrality online course, by bringing together the diverse expertise of the universities represented here today. This course will enhance collaboration and strengthen our capacity to integrate sustainability and carbon neutrality into educational systems. And I hope that by the end of today’s discussions, we will have a strong plan to develop this important cause and foster long-term collaboration.”
Professor Xu Tian has expertise in environmental management and conservation, and sustainable resource management, especially in regards to carbon policy analysis.
“First, thanks to Mahidol University, for providing this (opportunity). Right now I think I need to illustrate several of my own thinkings. The plan proposed is very interesting … and I think it is very important to build up cooperation between different universities for cross planning.”
“For Shanghai Jiao Tong there are two situations. First, if Mahidol confirms the education scores, then maybe that's easy for us to join. Maybe teachers or relevant experts from my school can join this project to do online teaching. But if the scores are – how to say, given by Shanghai Jiao Tong University – that's another story. Maybe we need so many steps to apply for permission. So I think maybe meeting today (we can get) very clear direction for the future.”
“Anyway, we are so happy to join this program and to cooperate with all the universities who joined. And another thing – in addition to educational topics – is how we think about practicing with students, especially for undergraduate students. UNESCAP is also a very good organization, so I think that's very valuable for the students, to have internship experience in that. Maybe this is another type of education experience. And also, I think it's very valuable for students to improve their capacity for global governance, especially in the carbon neutrality area.”
Aneta Nikolova is Climate Policy Lead in the Environmental Development Division at UNESCAP
“Thank you very much for the invitation, and I'm honored to be attending. Indeed, we have signed a memorandum of understanding between Mahidol and UNESCAP to promote this initiative. As climate policy lead, we've been working on promoting more ambitious climate commitments in the region, especially by member states doing regional reviews, and now we are supporting greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories at the regional level, with some capacity building for certain countries.”
“So yes, this initiative is very good. And really there is big potential to support ambitions for low carbon development, starting with actions on the campuses of our universities, and leading to more replication, more good practices, etc. Also, as you might know, ESCAP is supporting an initiative for cities, major cities in the region, to develop local government indices. These actually help determine contributions to reduced emissions, so this is where university campuses come really very strongly into the picture – by promoting good practices and helping (accelerate) the growth of renewable energy commitments at a small scale, but actually bringing more education and new kinds of engineers and new kinds of practitioners, too.”
“Right, we have to double the efficiency of our environments, compounds, villages, campuses, university campuses, buildings in the cities as well as looking into more sustainable transport. So I think this initiative can grow into promoting, being a pilot and pioneer in bringing that knowledge and opportunity to the region with the right partnerships.”
“I'm ready to discuss further what kind of ideas you may have and what the scope of e-learning could be. A Mahidol professor actually developed the carbon pricing instrument which we use, that has been promoted in the region successfully. So some kind of local government mini version of that could be also further developed or included in the training course as well.”
Professor Hiroshi Asakura is head of the International Committee in the Faculty of Environmental Science, as well as the chair of the International Exchange Committee for the faculty.
“First, thanks to the efforts of the previous chair of the International Exchange Committee, Professor Nakayama – as well as the kindness of the people at Mahidol. We have now been able to continue student exchange for over 10 years. I'm participating in the conference as a chair of the International Committee, though at this time I'm not conducting research directly related to carbon neutrality. I'm also largely dependent on Professor Nakayama for the discussion at this time, and he's absent today, unfortunately. And I don't have the authority to make decisions on behalf of the faculty. So excuse me, I cannot convey the intentions of the faculty, though I will convey the content of today’s conference. And it is encouraging to know that Professor Greg is one of the faculty officials participating. I hope that the name of the Nagasaki University will remain on the list.”
Professor Greg N. Nishihara is an expert in blue carbon, marine carbon capture systems, and ecosystem conservation.
“My laboratory is at the rganization for marine science and technology. I'm also a Pew Fellow. So my lab is really interested in conservation and restoration of seaweed and seagrass ecosystems. So through that kind of work, we began to investigate problems dealing with marine debris, and how that affects these ecosystems, as well as how that eventually will affect the ability of these ecosystems to capture carbon dioxide and to function as a blue carbon ecosystem.”
“So our lab is very much involved in measuring how much carbon can be captured by these ecosystems, and how much carbon can be stored in the sediments below these systems. So that's most of what we're doing in my laboratory. As for teaching, however, I have one undergraduate course that I teach in English mostly for first (and) second year students, and it primarily deals with marine issues, or issues in marine conservation. And we've been working and teaching mostly about the plastic debris problem. But just recently we got a big grant to do blue carbon work in seaweed systems. So I'll be teaching more blue carbon in that course, I'm pretty sure. So that's what my lab is, and what I do. And if anyone's interested in having more discussions, I'm more than happy to field questions, thank you.”
Professor Ho Ngo Anh Dao is Dean of the Faculty of Environment and Labour Safety and an expert in CCUS and carbon neutrality.
“Good afternoon to everyone from Vietnam. So first of all, it's my honor to join the meeting this afternoon. And actually, I'm surprised and very interested in this milestone. We are also now very concerned about carbon neutrality and co2 storage and capture. (Currently) we also teach our undergrad and graduate students about both. So I hope that by joining this process and also collaborating with many universities in this project, we can widen the network and also contribute to the growth of carbon neutral campuses.”
“As for further activities that I would like to share with you, I feel that we can do the training course for the students, and we can also contribute by inviting our lecturers. They are very specialized in these fields. And we also can send our students to participate, or they can learn, during the online training workshop or seminar and widen their knowledge. So I hope that during the further activities we can join with more (phases) of this project. Thank you so much.”
Nur Syamsiyah is in the Department of Sociology and has an interest in EV transportation in communities and on campuses.
“I'm from the Department of Sociology and actually our department head is supposed to join us today. He sent his regards, and also mentioned to me that we are very open to this potential collaboration. Not only are we currently striving for international collaborations, we are also striving to be an eco-green campus. It's been heavily implemented right now. In the Eco Green Campus program, for example, we have solar panels installed in strategic locations. We also have supported EV transportation with charging stations and we also provide electric bikes and buses for students and faculty mobility. And we also have a SDG center at our university.”
“(As noted) we also have been implementing and facilitating many international collaborations. We usually hold a summer course program called Amarta, and we accept inbound students from international partners. For example, last month we received inbound students from Griffith University, Australia, and in our faculty and department we have quotas for guest lectures, international guest lectures, adjunct professors, and students inbound and outbound, and also staff inbound and outbound – and the expenses are covered by the faculty. So there's a lot of potential, and we are also trying collaborative online learning. We started with a Ukrainian Catholic university this semester. It was very interesting. That's why we are very open to this kind of potential collaboration. And what we can offer at least, and what we can guarantee, is that we have a facility and program for inbound and outbound students, guest lectures, and also visiting fellows or young professors. So that's the three annual programs that we always have. And that's what we can offer.”
“Regarding research, we have courses such as sociology of environment, and sociology of disaster and we often collaborate with stakeholders to connect these courses and perhaps to have you as guest lectures. It would be amazing as well. So those are things that we can offer, and we are very excited to commit to this collaboration. Thank you.”
Professor Krisna Febrian has a background in urban and regional planning.
“I'm here to represent Miss Anisa Hamida. I'm from the Office of International Affairs at the National Institute of Technology. Actually this program, CNC, is very, very good. It’s a very nice program for the reduction of emissions in the world.”
“So I have three notes. The first is, we can do partnerships, in the form of joint research. The second is online courses. And the third is seminars or dialogue (at NIT). We have three (key) departments, which maybe can have partnerships with this program. The first is the environmental department. The second is urban and regional planning, and the third is maybe engineering. So we have three programs which maybe can have advanced collaboration.”
“Again, we are very excited and very interested in this program, because actually, we now have the largest solar panel in our country, for the university category. That is at our second campus. We have also developed a university roadmap. This program is linear, and is designed to reduce emissions. So I'm very interested. If we can advance this partnership, maybe we can have some detailed activities – maybe not not just for the students, but also for lecturers, or to develop our research, and do some exchanges. Our students currently have the inbound and outbound activities. So more activities (in relation) to this program would definitely interest us. Thank you all.”
Dr. Zul Itam is an associate professor from the Environmental Management program, with a specialization in environmental engineering, and forestry/ecology. He is also Deputy Dean of Research for the Faculty of Science, and is researching in the field of biomass; namely how biomass residues from agro industries and forestry can be integrated into carbon sequestration.
“Hi, everyone and good afternoon. First of all, thank you for the invitation. Our dean just got the invitation this morning, so I have been tasked with representing our university in this initiative. It seems this network is already established and executing a few programs.”
“Our university is willing to both contribute to, and be part of the e-learning course – which if I'm not mistaken, we are going to work on today – and then perhaps in the future look into student mobility and also joint research programs. So I do look forward to a fruitful meeting and a continuous relationship with the other universities which are here today.”
Dr. Arlene L. Gonzales is Chief for Sustainability and Futures Thinking under the department of Environmental Science, with a background in sustainable programs/net zero, nature based solutions and climate change.
“I basically manage all the sustainability programs at the university, including the Net Zero roadmap, which we just recently crafted because we wanted to create an impact on society and become an example to our students. So we are slowly trying to reduce the carbon footprint of our university. We also started doing carbon accounting, which is annually reported to our stakeholders and to our officials, as well as used as a basis for policy making within our university. So with our inclusion as a potential member for the carbon neutrality campus network, we hope to improve our performance by learning from the different universities. And in terms of the contribution, or the development of collaborative activities mentioned earlier, I already asked permission from our university. And they said, whatever potential collaborations we can fit in please include MMSU.”
“Our region is actually a hub for renewable energy too. So we have a degree program offering a professional science masters in renewable energy engineering. So if in the future we'll be needing a faculty expert that is related to renewable energy. I can recommend or suggest a few.”
“For the online course, I would be very happy to contribute faculty, and even our students as well. I can pledge the participation of our students, because we want to build their green skills, and I think learning how to lower their carbon footprint is one of the most important skills that they could actually learn and bring with them in their respective potential workplaces in the future. We're very interested as well in doing collaborative research, especially in lowering our carbon footprint, and by including approaches with nature based solutions. So with that I commit MMSU to become an active part of the network. Thank you very much.”
Professor Dr Sivakumar Manickam is Director of the Centre for Green Technology and Sustainability Research, and teaches environmental engineering and energy engineering and planning.
“First of all, on behalf of UTB, I have to thank you for the invitation, and really we are thankful to you.
I am a professor in chemical and energy engineering, and the director for the center. Basically what we do is focus on green energy and sustainability research areas, for example, renewable energy, sustainable water management, waste management and the circular economy, sustainable agriculture, as well as green building and urban planning – and more importantly, Brunei is moving towards solar energy (in a big way). So our research is also intensively focusing on solar energy-related research as well as energy management systems. Also sustainable transportation and EV charging research activities. We are also slowly introducing digital transformation and agriculture related activities.”
“We are also interested in conducting courses or workshops to increase awareness about green technology, as well as sustainability activities – and not only for the universities, but even in the schools as well as to the public. So that is another focus.”
“Besides the research, we have a separate energy engineering department and chemical engineering, under which we teach different courses related to sustainability, renewable energy and also energy engineering planning. I even teach the environmental engineering courses as well as the energy engineering planning courses. Overall, our university and also our center are mainly focusing on sustainability.”
“So we are looking forward to – based on our expertise and based on the requirements from your side – looking into where we could contribute, and considering what could be done. Okay, thank you so much.”
Dr. Anish Ghimire has research expertise in GHG emissions, LCA, solar energy and photovoltaic engineering.
“Thank you very much for this opportunity to participate in this expert meeting on carbon neutrality. I think CNC is an excellent initiative by the faculty. I'm originally from Nepal and I recently moved from Kathmandu University. My research areas are mainly related with waste treatment, anaerobic digestion and life cycle assessment. I teach graduate level courses on greenhouse gas, and mitigation, and energy recovery from waste. I also teach courses related to environmental life cycle assessment and water treatment.”
“I would also like to briefly share some of the activities (currently) going on at Asian Institute of Technology. AIT has a sustainability policy that clearly aims to become a carbon neutral campus, within a model of a botanical garden campus, moving towards Net Zero. One recent initiative was a project on solar electricity. We installed around 1.5 megawatt capacity of Solar PV. I think that approximately generates around 1.9 gigawatt hours of electricity. So I think that (alone) reduces carbon emissions by around 970 tons per year. The next phase of this project is to install floating solar panels onto the canals and the lakes which are on the campus.”
“Though I do not have prior experience in developing curriculum at the high school level, with my previous experience of curriculum development at the undergraduate and graduate levels, I believe I can bring some life cycle perspective into the course. And again, I would be happy to contribute on this initiative, and I am happy to be part of this team.”
Questions & Suggestions raised
Which students will the course target?
A high school curriculum is already being developed, so this will target university students in a variety of backgrounds – science, engineering, sociology, etc. – with enough details to cover the basics. The new online course, ideally, would only be open to undergraduate students from our own universities first.
Once we see the amount of students enrolled in the course we can adjust. I.e. if there’s too many we may set limitations for each university. If there aren't so many students maybe we open enrollment to non-member universities. But if the first course is a success, we’d like to come back to discuss with our members first – what we need to do to continue and extend our platform.
Meanwhile, the Mahidol University team will work to invite members from some other ASEAN countries for the next step. Right now we have Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, Nepal, Malaysia and Indonesia, so we are trying to reach the universities from Laos, from Cambodia, from Myanmar, and Singapore.
Can we design the online course as something that could be credited?
For students who would like to participate it would look good in their transcript of records. It will appear that they have taken an environment-related or climate change-related program, and reflect that additional skill.
And too, could it be a transfer credit program? We could have a memorandum of agreement, so the crediting would actually be honored by every institution who would be joining the carbon neutrality network.
This idea is very nice, but I think it depends on the law and regulation of each university. But for our faculty, we’re (initially) trying to implement this as a kind of incentive for them. But it depends on each of the university members, where the laws and regulations from each country and each university might be different.
Thoughts from ESCAP
ESCAP has an e-learning platform where we have a lot of courses; some of which fit under these topics. We have a nature-based solutions course, ocean accounting, behavioral sciences, environmental protection and environmental policies for instance. So we could share the list we have and decide how they fit there.
I highly recommend a course on GHG emissions by sector. GHG inventories in all the developing countries in Asia Pacific are very much lagging behind. The software is complex and we have to find new ways to collect the data. I would very much like to work with you on developing that particular portion. The technical unit is in Japan and already provides training for national governments. Creating mock software for training purposes would help, because we need a new younger generation of GHG emissions inventory experts and engineers. We very much need that in the region.
Another interesting course we could consider having is on underwriters of projects for carbon neutrality funding. We are lacking that pool of young experts, I mean young between 30 and 40 years old. Experts that can write bankable projects to help their governments tap into international funding. In our region it is a very big gap, and not enough for developing countries. We also now have Article 6, operationalized by Cop 29 (authorizing the trade of carbon credits). How can we popularize that in a course – not only for students, but for professionals working in national teams related to carbon neutrality or implementation?
As you mentioned, the course is going to be for the local students first. But so the question is, what is expected from the faculty outside of your university?
And how will the faculty be compensated for helping produce the course? Will we be able to use the information from the course in our own courses, or is it going to be open to anyone who wants to look at the course material? What is the plan behind this?
Let’s start with our member universities first. All the course materials, yes we will record them. But it's just for sharing within our platform first.
Basically, this is just the first meeting. Once we know each other and gather all the ideas, our team will collect the feedback and design a mock curriculum. Then we can discuss and decide these kinds of issues together. Course structure, what we need, what year we expect students will attend, extra materials, what is the future and those next steps. We need to discuss these together.
I think it would be good if we keep the course material for university students general. Maybe students from any discipline can take it?
But it should at least contain some basic things about what does climate change mean, and how greenhouse gases contribute, and how it is linked with our daily activities, and how we know what the responsible activities are that can mitigate these emissions, and so on. Maybe some simple tools can be introduced for accounting or footprint analysis. That should be pretty good to start with.
Okay, thank you very much. I think this is a quite similar idea to my opinion. (From our side) this project started from the conference last month. It was the first time that we met some participants; here at the conference in Bangkok. We agreed not only to pursue research, but also to start with the easiest collaboration, by creating projects such as this online course. This is the easiest step. So from those events, after finishing the conference, our team started by inviting all of you to join today. This is why. You have this, your very target expertise, or previous experience and that’s what we’d like to ask for – cooperation from lecturers, and participation from students among the member universities.
Activity-based short term programs
In order for course work to be more interesting to students, maybe we could set a week where the students are actually in a face to face class session, and then immersed also in actual field visits or hands on work, and then we do the awarding of certificates later on.
This is now the trend. For example, for students who are actually engaged in exchange programs and even transferred credits, there are some parts online, but there are opportunities for students with say one week of activities. So just an idea that I can share, that I have observed in our short course programs, or being offered by other institutions as well.