HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser attending the signing of a partnership between Qatar Foundation and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany which was announced at the 18th Conference of Parties (COP18) taking place in Doha. The partnership will establish a climate research centre in Qatar to undertake pioneering work in the global fight against climate change.


By Noimot Olayiwola/Staff Reporter

The next stage of modern civilisation could be blue-printed in Qatar with its plans to establish a Climate Change Research Institute by 2014,” Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) founding director Professor Joachim Schellnhuber stated yesterday.
He was speaking after signing an agreement with Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development for PIK, which will offer its expertise to help Qatar establish the institute here.
“Science, technology and strategic analysis are the bases of development of Qatar, so it is expected that the establishment of a climate change research institute here would be significant as the activities of the centre will be around meteorology and policy,” he stated.
He mentioned that PIK’s research team will be moving to Qatar to assist Qataris to set up the institute, which is expected to have up to 200 scientists working in it.
“The Climate Change Research Institute will not just be about climate science where you can just do meteorology, its being a climate change institute means that humans are influenced in the climate and that they are part of the solutions, if not the only solution,” he stated while mentioning that the research institute will do regional climate analyses, which no one in the region has done yet.
“So, we’ll see how wind precipitating panels, for example, will change in this region. Qatar has one of the lowest precipitations in the world but storm directions are changing for example, but it will also then say how can this country do a transition to sustainability in the sense of using its fossil fuels in order to propel itself into the era of renewable because there are plenty of opportunities here, the sun is shining 300 days a year, if not more, and there is also the wind energy,” he observed.
“We are not just going to be analysing the problems but also developing solutions…,” he stated.
However, Prof Schellnhuber suggested that Qatar should have a clear and convincing plan for the first five years for the institute, which he said was “the right way to go forward and that is how you ramp up the whole thing”.
He suggested that Qatar can consider twinning programmes with PIK to kick-start the professional capacity of the institute in Doha by networking with the PIK’s global network of young people for training in its most advanced research project for few months or a year in Potsdam in Germany until they are fully positioned to start on their own here.
“There are many smarts ways to accelerate the process of establishing the institute in Qatar because if you decide to do it from scratch, we found that it can take 10 years until you reach a certain level. I built two institutes from scratch and it was a lot of work,” he said.
The Potsdam Institute was founded just after the end of the cold war in 1991, when the Berlin Wall had just fallen and the world was eager for new ways to overcome the cold war divide, Prof Schellnhuber recalled adding: “Qatar can be a role model for the entire region and all drylands countries and as the COP18 is preparing the grounds for 2015, which in my view, is the end game for climate change policy to make a breakthrough.”   
While mentioning how the effects of changing climate will impact Qatar, which is already vulnerable due to its adverse weather, he said: “Climate is changing the storm pattern and the wind direction and finally, the sea levels are rising in metre’s range and what is being projected in terms of rising sea levels by 2014 is to be within the range of between 19-20cm and this does not really include contributions by the melting big ice sheets.”
Prof Schellnhuber maintained that if the world’s temperature goes beyond 50C by 2100, the sea levels will rise by up to three metres and those countries in the low lying coastline would be highly vulnerable.
“If climate change and all its adverse effects can’t be stopped at 20C or below, there will be a number of big challenges, especially in agriculture,” he cautioned.
While stressing the need for fresh ideas, innovations and compelling evidence in climate change research to combat the challenges, he added: “The rising sea levels depends on emission scenario…as many big ice sheets will be melting and all their waters released towards the tropics and there would be more sea level rising in the South sea and the small islands, and that includes the Indian Ocean here, so this is the big challenge while in some parts of the North Atlantic, sea level rises will be smaller.”