First CLIFF-GRADS Alumni Workshop, Indonesia, October 2019
Thirty-six CLIFF-GRADS alumni from twenty different countries attended a workshop in Indonesia in October 2019 alongside the annual meeting of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA) Council.
The workshop was the first opportunity for the CLIFF-GRADS alumni to meet one another, given that they all come from different countries and study in host institutions around the world. It established a network of young professionals, and provided networking opportunities with leading scientists and country representatives in the students’ respective fields.
The primary goal of the workshop was to build on existing emission quantification and estimation capabilities of CLIFF-GRADS alumni through lessons presented by experts in their fields, and some hands-on technical training.
Topics that were covered in the workshop included:
- The future of mitigation: new technologies and emerging solutions
- Modelling greenhouse gas emissions for carbon sequestration
- Developing greenhouse gas inventories and emission Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV)
- Connecting science to outcomes and impact
The workshop provided a platform for these early-career CLIFF-GRADS scientists to present their research, and to discuss and refine methodologies relating to their PhD theses and CLIFF-GRADS research stays.
Finally, the group also attended the 5th Global Science Conference on Climate-Smart Agriculture, focused on ‘Transforming food systems under a changing climate’. The CLIFF-GRADS alumni learnt about agriculture’s vital role in both global food security and the emission reductions needed to meet international obligations to limit warming under the Paris Agreement.
The CLIFF-GRADS alumni are each contributing to international research in low emission agriculture. Their work is vital as agricultural systems will need to change significantly over the next decade to achieve global food security and to build the resilience of agricultural systems to climate change.
We also wish to acknowledge the workshop facilitators: Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA), the Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) flagship of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) and Wageningen University & Research (WUR).
Click here to read more about CLIFF-GRADS, including when the next round of applications open in early 2020.
