2011-6-22   Source: China Daily

Fudan University announced on Friday the start of the Fudan-Tyndall Centre, an institution dedicated to researching the causes and effects of climate change and exploring the potential solutions. 

At the same time, Fudan University announced it will found a Research Institute for the Changing Global Environment. The institute will work with the Fudan-Tyndall Centre to bring about cooperation between the research and teaching on climate change conducted at both Fudan University and the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. 

The original Tyndall Centre was founded in 2000 in the United Kingdom and led by the University of East Anglia and was named after the 19th century British scientist John Tyndall, who speculated that fluctuations in the amounts of water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could be related to climate change. The center has gained an international reputation for its research into climate change, and for providing independent research results to policymakers in the United Kingdom and the European Union. 

The start of the Fudan-Tyndall Centre and the research institute was regarded as a way to give Chinese scientists more of a voice in the debates that have arisen over the issue of climate change. 

"A lack of research causes China to fail in its attempt to persuade others (to accept its views on climate change), and sometimes leads to misunderstanding in the international community about China's stance," Professor Chen Jianmin, dean of the environmental science and engineering department of Fudan University, who is also the vice-director of the Research Institute for the Changing Global Environment, told China Daily. 

"So we need to make sure the results of our research are of a higher quality. In China, research into the world's environment and climate change has lagged behind that conducted in other countries. "We still have a long way to go, and the Fudan-Tyndall Centre is an opportunity for us to advance our exchange with the international community." 

Researchers at the Fudan-Tyndall Centre will look into the causes and effects of climate change and produce plans and measures to cope with any dangers their work leads them to foresee. The center has so far undertaken projects considering the social responsibilities of business that emit large amounts of greenhouse gases, the management of scarce water resources in China, and the amount of nitrogen that is emitted from intensive agriculture. 

Fudan University said it will spend 50 million yuan ($7.7 million) in the next two years on the center. 

"The Fudan-Tyndall Centre will not only conduct research for the government, as well as businesses, to help in policy-making, but also help train future generations in coping with climate change," said Professor Trevor Davies, co-director of the Fudan-Tyndall Centre and the pro-vice chancellor for research and knowledge transfer at the University of East Anglia. 

China has pledged that, by 2020, it will reduce its emissions of carbon dioxide for each unit of its GDP by 40 to 45 percent from what it emitted in 2005.