Day 1 :
Keynote Forum
Peter Hoeppe
Munich Re, Germany
Keynote: Increasing losses caused by extreme weather events: What are the drivers and what is the role of climate change?
Time : 9:30-10:15
Biography:
Peter Hoeppe is the Chairman of the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative, which he founded in 2005 and had been appointed as Climate Change Advisor of the Bavarian State Government. He has completed his Masters and PhD in Meteorology and Human Biology.
Abstract:
Losses caused by natural disasters are a major factor influencing the balance sheet of insurers, especially reinsurers. Such events have a high potential of creating extreme accumulation losses. This is why the insurance industry has built up a lot of expertise in analyses and assessment of trends of losses caused by natural perils. Such losses have increased tremendously worldwide in the last decades. In order to detect the drivers of this trend the losses have to be adjusted for changes in exposed values. Munich Re just recently has developed a very sophisticated method for such a normalization of losses. After this normalization a still residual loss trend can be either driven by changes in the vulnerability of assets or on the hazard side. The results of such analyses with data of the Munich Re Nat Cat SERVICE database clearly show that in the last decades the main drivers of the loss trend have been changes in the exposure of values, i.e., growth of population and wealth in affected regions. Also a shift of population into more hazardous regions, especially to the coasts is increasing the losses. On the other side a clear signal of prevention measures, e.g., investment into flood protection, already can be detected in decreasing normalized losses caused by river floods, even though the number of intense precipitation events has increased. For thunderstorm related loss events the number of events as well as the normalized losses has increased significantly in North America and Europe. There is a suggestion that these increases are driven by an increase in the humidity of the lower atmosphere and thus, that this is a secondary effect of climate change. As global warming will continue in the coming decades, its contribution to increasing natural catastrophe losses will become more prominent, a projection also given by the 5th assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Keynote Forum
Ji Whan Ahn
Korea Institute of Geosciences and Mineral Resources, South Korea
Keynote: Feasibility study of in situ precipitated calcium carbonates (PCC) synthesis technology for paper recycling by the capture and direct utilization of low concentration CO2
Time : 10:15-11:00
Biography:
Ji Whan Ahn has completed her BS, MS and PhD degree in Mining and Minerals Engineering from Inha University and she has completed Master’s degree in Resources Environmental Economics from Yonsei University. Currently she is working as an Executive Director in Carbon Resource Recycling Appropriate Technology Center, Korea Institute of Geosciences and Mineral Resources, President for Korea Institute of Limestone & Advanced Materials, Chairperson and Vice President of Korea Institute of Resources and Recycling. She has published more than 175 papers, 716 proceedings papers/conference presentations and 71 patents. She has received many awards for her research excellence.
Abstract:
Feasibility study of in situ PCC synthesis technology for paper recycling in the Phong Khe Paper Craft Village of Vietnam has a green manufacture model and solution for environmental remediation. In situ PCC synthesis technology is a recycling technique of waste paper and capture and direct utilization of low concentration of CO2 with PCC filler which improves whiteness and machinery lifetime of paper. This paper recycling with in situ PCC synthesis has been developed and popularized in other countries. It is featured by a process of mixing waste pulp with PCC formed by quick lime (CaO) and CO2 in an in situ PCC Reactor. In general, PCC synthesis processes are divided into the two following steps in paper recycling process: (1) CaO is turned into slaked lime (calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)2) through its reaction with water, which is called hydraulic process and (2) PCC is synthesized by the reaction between Ca(OH)2 and carbonate ions (CO32-). The technology has several advantages. It reduces overall manufacture costs and needs fewer corrosive chemicals, thus extending machinery lifetime. Most of all, the process is more environmentally friendly due to following reasons: Easier recycling CO2 generated from paper industry, wood consumption reduction, less wastewater and byproduct production from the process and less energy consumption owing to shorter refining and drying times. It is calculated that recycling one ton of waste paper can reduce 937 kg CO2, 3.22 KWh energy, 42,465 L water and 340 kg waste. In order to apply the paper recycling technology, an action plan which collects waste papers is required as a climate change adaptation. To spread the collection of waste papers, the system which transfers the collected waste papers to cashable mileage needs to be introduced in Phong Khe village and extend to entire of Vietnam. The system needs to be started with students and citizens as an education to sustainable paper recycling.
Keynote Forum
Jean Sciare
The Cyprus Institute, Cyprus
Keynote: Monitoring air pollution and climate change in the eastern Mediterranean Middle East (EMME) region: Challenges and opportunities
Time : 11:15-12:00
Biography:
Jean Sciare is the Director of the Energy Environment and Water Research Center of the Cyprus Institute, Cyprus. His main expertise covers the experimental characterization of atmospheric pollutants; addressing issues related their impacts on air quality, health and climate. He is currently leading the development of several major research infrastructures in Cyprus, contributing to the long-term observation of key climate forcers in the Eastern Mediterranean Middle East region. He has co-authored more than 100 international refereed publications and more than 200 presentations at international conferences devoted to atmospheric chemistry and physics.
Abstract:
Almost 400 million people live in the Eastern Mediterranean Middle East (EMME); a region where climate change is already evident (the number of extremely hot days has doubled in the region since 1970). In the near future, this region could become so hot that human habitability is compromised. The goal of limiting global warming to less than 2 °C, agreed at the 2015 Conference of Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris will not be sufficient to prevent this scenario. In combination with increasing air pollution and windblown desert dust, the environmental conditions could become intolerable and may force people to migrate. The lack of constrains by accurate in-situ atmospheric data of key climate forcers has been identified as a major limitation for the validation/performance of climate models over the EMME. This may have a strong impact in the design of efficient regional/national Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation strategies, which are usually fed by high-resolution regional climate projections. In this context, the rapid implementation of a regional atmospheric network with high quality data following international standards appears as a high priority for the entire EMME region. With the support of the ACTRIS pan-European Research Infrastructure, the Cyprus Institute is currently putting unprecedented efforts to establish the first ever long-term observations of climate forcers (greenhouse gases, aerosols, clouds, reactive gases) in the EMME region. This infrastructure gathers a ground-based supersite and a fleet of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles equipped with miniaturized sensors to scrutinize the vertical distribution of air pollutants in the first 5 km of the atmosphere. This infrastructure is seen as the first step towards a regional coordinated atmospheric network that is still missing in the Middle East.