| From | Sujata Gupta | Date | Tue, 05 Oct 1999 19:16:32 +0530 |
|---|---|---|---|
| To | Mike Hulme | ||
| CC | Trevor Davies | ||
| Subject | Re: UK National Climate Change Centre | ||
| Dear Mike, I was on travel and hence the delay in responding to your email. TERI will be interested in being one of the International Supporting Institutes for the Centre. I will fax a letter to you tomorrow and send the original by post. I have not heard on the DETR proposal as yet. Best wishes Sujata Sujata Gupta, Ph.D. Fellow and Dean Policy Analysis Division TERI >>> Mike Hulme Dear Sujata, This may well not be news to you, but the UK government has recently requested bids from UK universities to house a new 'National Climate Change Centre'. The Centre would receive funds of 2 million pounds sterling per year for (at least initially) five years. The role of the Centre would be to compliment existing work on climate modelling and data analysis (IPCC WGI areas) by focussing on 'solutions' (mitigation and adaptation options and their implementation), specifically for the UK government and business community, but within a global context. The emphasis appears to be on IPCC WG3 area with a strong commitment to integrated research, but with some overlap with WG2. The Centre would carry out independent research, but would also be expected to make use of, and to integrate, exisiting UK research and expertise. It would be expected to contribute to and to foster interdisciplinary research that underpins sustainable solutions to the climate change problem. UEA is making a bid for this Centre. Applications are due by mid-October. UEA is well-known for CRU, but it also has strengths in data distribution to the climate impacts community, in impacts research, and in environmental economics (CSERGE). While these areas are fundamental foundation stones for the science that the Centre is expected to develop, the Centre would need to expand significantly beyond these areas. We have a Consortium in place as follows - 6-7 Senior Partners - (UEA, UMIST, U.Southamton, Dept. Economics at U.Cambridge, Cranfield, Leeds Institute of Transport Studies, IH and ITE) - Affiliated UK Organisations - (we have 6-8 of these) - Supporting Business Links - Supporting International Organisations If UEA were to succeed in its bid for the Centre, then it would seek to develop strong links with other institutions abroad in order to strengthen its own intellectual base and, through such links, to contribute to the development and implementation of the science. We would see TERI as one of these Supporting International Organisations. To this end, we would like a short letter of support from yourself - on behalf of the Policy Analysis Division, or a wider TERI grouping if you feel able to represent them - indicating that you fully support the UEA bid and would exclusively lend your backing to this Consortium and be keen to interact closely with us at a research level were the Centre to come to UEA. This interaction may take the form of exchanging scientists, testing out new methodologies, developing/advising on workshops, providing entry-points into international policy initiatives, etc., etc. Nothing too formal or lengthy at this stage, but we would like to provide the Council's with a flavour of the breadth of our existing and future colloboration in the field and our ability to mobilise support in our favour. Many thanks. Please send to Prof. Trevor Davies, Dean, Environmental Sciences, UEA, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, before the 12th October. Feel free to ask me for more details, etc. Our written text is beginning to take shape and we will circulate a draft of this to you before the bid goes in. Regards, Mike p.s. I have not yet heard anything about the DETR India Programme. Have you? ***************************************************************************** Dr Mike Hulme Reader in Climatology tel: +44 1603 593162 Climatic Research Unit fax: +44 1603 507784 School of Environmental Science email: m.hulme@uea.ac.uk University of East Anglia web site: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~mikeh/ Norwich NR4 7TJ ***************************************************************************** Annual mean temperature in Central England for 1999 is currently about +1.4 deg C above the 1961-90 average *************************************************** The global-mean surface air temperature anomaly for 1998 was +0.57 deg C above the 1961-90 average, the warmest year yet recorded ***************************************************************************** | |||