know our researcher - Prof Shobhakar by AITasia

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Asian Institute of Technology

Faculty Profile

 Dr. Shobhakar Dhakal is a professor of energy and climate change at Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand, where he also previously served as Vice President (Academic Affairs) and Dean.

 He is currently serving as a Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) of the IPCC’s ongoing Special Report on Climate Change and Cities in the seventh assessment cycle. He also served as CLA in IPCC’s sixth and fifth Assessment Reports.

 He specializes in climate policies and net-zero transitions, cities and climate change, climate finance, energy policy and modelling, and the SDG tradeoffs and synergies.

 He has published over 140 journal papers and book/chapter contributions, and was involved in several UN-led scientific reports and global and regional assessments. He has supervised 70+ graduate (master and doctoral) students.

 He also currently leads the implementation of CLARE-ASEAN initiative, funded by FCDO-UK and IDRC-Canada, that aims to accelerate regional research for sustainable and inclusive solutions for enhanced urban resilience to climate change in ASEAN member states.

Research Expertise

 Energy transition and low carbon pathways analysis

 Cities and climate change

 Energy and climate mitigation policy analysis

 Climate finance and carbon pricing

 Synergies and tradeoff of SDG7 and 13 with other SDGs

Coordinating Lead Author of Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reports: Seventh (Special Report on Cities Ongoing), Sixth and Fifth Assessment Reports (Mitigation WG3)

Asia regional Innovation Hubs for e mobility transport innovation

(UEMI E mobility)

Objectives: This project is part of “Regional Innovation Hubs for Sustainable Transport Innovation” initiative, supported by UEMI under the STREnGth_M framework. In this, AIT will act as the Regional Innovation Hub for Asia, providing advice on transport research and innovation priorities.

August 2025 March 2026

 Analyzing existing knowledge relevant to sustainable and electric mobility in Asia summarizing knowledge gaps and emerging research themes

 Stakeholder consultations, development of Regional Priority Matrices, and Collaboration Opportunity Map

 Innovation policy paper

Accelerating

Research for Sustainable and Inclusive Solutions for Enhanced Urban Resilience to Climate Change in ASEAN (CLARE ASEAN)

Objectives: To generate new knowledge and enhance the research capacity for understanding, identifying and enabling the urban resilience to climate change involving strengthening of physical, social and governance aspects.

 Enabling socially inclusive and sustainable actions to support resilience to climate change and natural hazards

 Applied (action-oriented) research, co-creation, actor-centered, placed-based approach, in-built partnerships and engagements

 Setting up and managing theregional research consortium

Advancing knowledge through knowledge products and policy dialogues

 International collaboration and engagement

November

Total grant amount: 3,750,000 Canadian $ Research themes

 Multifaceted and hazardagnostic response that leads to structural change for better action by decision makers.

 Resilience against worsening urban heat extremes through new knowledge and means such as planning, policies, financing, including heat mitigation and coping strategies

Int’l Conference on Bridging Peace and Sustainability amidst

Global Transformations

Prof. Shobhakar Dhakal, ConferenceCo-chairand co-organizer

 To build global network for education and research on peace and sustainability

 To create a forum for scholars and stakeholders to dialogue on peace and sustainability

 Organizing AIT-Hiroshima University 2023 International Conference on Peace and Sustainability

Project: Promoting Himalayan Development by Strengthening Teaching

and Research on Sustainable Development Goals

 Strengthen teaching and research on the SDGs in the HKH

 Co-develop and implement introductory and advanced courses related to global sustainability

 Promote North-South and South-South research exchanges on topics related to sustainability and networking

 Transfer theco-developed courses to otheruniversities in the HKH region

 Publish its outcomes in scientific journals together with press releases and conductpolicyworkshops

Förderung der Entwicklung des Himalayas durch Stärkung von Lehre und Forschung im Bereich der Sustainable Development Goals (ForHimSDG)

Thailand, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Afghanistan

UNEP Synthesis Report: “Making Peace With Nature: A scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies”

Contributing author to the high-level UNEP synthesis report based on evidence from global environmental assessments

• UN Secretary-General António Guterres, and Executive Director of the UNEP Inger Andersen launched the report ahead of the fifth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5)

Key messages

 Unsustainable development is rapidly degrading Earth’s capacity to sustain human well-being

 The world is failing to meet its commitments tolimit environmental damage

 Earth’s interrelated environmental emergencies must be addressed together

 Human knowledge, ingenuity, technology and cooperation can transform societies

 and economies and secure a sustainable future

 Transformed economicand financial systems can power the shift to sustainability

 Everyonehas a part to playin thetransformation toa sustainable future

https://www.unep.org/resources/making-peace-nature

 Status and targets of renewableenergydevelopment

 Clean Energy Financing in ASEAN

 InvestmentNeeds

 Financing gaps

 Prevailing Financing Sources

 Regional Cooperation in Energy Financing

 Policy Instruments and Financing Mechanisms

 Policy supportinstruments

 Financing mechanismand instruments

 Key lessons from ASEAN’s experience

 Challenges and Barriers: Regulatory, financial and market, capacity Gaps

https://www.adb.org/publications/financing-clean-energydeveloping-asia

Project: Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Mitigation Potentials from Passenger Transport in Asia and

the Pacific

 To clarify the role of passenger transport in the region for energy consumption

 To provide business-as-usual energy and CO2 emissions scenarios of passenger transport in the region

 To quantify the role of the various passenger transport related policy options, namely, fuel efficiency improvements, scaling up the electric mobility and thepromotion of public transport

https://www.freeimages.com/photo/publictransportation-1460659

Valiantis 2014

Passenger Transport SDG and NDC links

Avoid-Shift-Improve Framework

Selected Scenarios for the Asia Pacific Region

Project: Mastering Energy Supply Focusing on Isolated Areas

 To provide high quality postgraduate education on energy supply systems in countries with many isolated areas and insular systems.

 Establishment of a number of Master Courses combining the experience of the EU and Asian countries with huge renewable energy potentials

 Focus on Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia

 Support managing of energy resources in isolated power systems, increasing energy efficiency, utilizing renewable energy sources, energy storage, demand side management and demand response, grid maintenance techniques and financial and economic tools for energy access toisolated areas.

Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices – Capacity Building in the field of Higher Education (598716-EPP-1-2018-1-EL-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP)

Technological Educational Institute of Crete (Lead)

Paul Sabatier - Universite Toulouse III, France

Eurotraining Educational Organisation, Greece

Canary Wharf, UK

Canary Islands Institute of Technology, Spain

Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand

Naresuan University, Thailand

Nong Lam University, Vietnam

University of Danang, Vietnam

Institute of Technology of Bandung, Indonesia

Universitas Gadjah-Mada, Indonesia

Focus in South-East Asia

Project:

Evidence based Policies for the Sustainable Use of Energy Resources in the Asia Pacific Region Thailand’s Renewable Energy Policies

Aim:

 Enable evidence-based policy- making for renewable energy development and evaluate its impacts on Thailand’s existing goals and targets for Renewable Energy.

 Review and evaluation of Thailand’s Renewable Energy Policies and its Progress.

 Identify what more needs to be done to achieve Thailand’s RE targets, including identification of new policies, options and pathways, integrated analysis of energy sector across sectors, and quantification of theimpacts using modelling tools and techniques

Joint collaboration of Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and Department of Alternative Energy Development and Efficiency (DEDE) of Royal Thai Government

Meeting Future Energy needs in the Hindu Kush Himalaya

Key findings and messages

 HKH, despite having huge hydropower potential of ~500 GW, remains energy poor and vulnerable

 Measures to enhance energy supply have had less than satisfactory results because of low prioritization and a failure to address challenges of remoteness and fragility

 Inadequate data and analyses are a major barrier to designing contextspecific interventions

 Quantitative targets (with quality specifications for RE options) based on an explicit recognition of the full costs and benefits should be the basis of designing policies, prioritizing actions and strengthening investments

 Governments need to prioritize use of locally available energy resources

 A high-level, empowered, regional mechanism should be established to strengthen regional energy trade and cooperation.

Policy relevant knowledge synthesis impacting

→ the 240 million hill and mountain people across the eight countries sharing theregion

→ the 1.65 billion peoplein theriver basins downstream

 First of its kind regional energy assessment

 Solution-oriented and forward looking consolidate knowledge

 High profile multi-institute collaborative assessment

Coordinating Lead Authors

➢ Shobhakar Dhakal, AIT, Thailand

➢ Leena Srivastava, TERI University, India

➢ Bikash Sharma, ICIMOD, Nepal

Lead Authors

➢ Debajit Palit, TERI, India

➢ Brijesh Mainali, Linnaeus University, Sweden

➢ Rabindra Nepal, University of Tasmania, Australia

➢ Pallav Purohit, IIASA, Austria

➢ Anandajit Goswami, TERI University, India

➢ Ghulam Mohd Malikyar, National Environmental Protection Agency of Afghanistan

➢ Kul Bahadur Wakhley, Bhutan

Tracking influences of Asian urban GHG emissions for sustainability policies: Identifying low carbon pathways to meet the Paris Agreement

 Asia has undergone rapid urbanization. → From 1990 to 2010, the number of urban residents in Asia grew by over 800 million, increasing the Asian share of global urban population from 45 to52%

 Asian CO2 emissions increased from 6 Gt to 14 Gt, increasing its share of global GHG emissions from 39 to 54%. Further urbanization portends even higher emission levels.

 To address this challenge, we propose urban case study historical analyses of emissions and their driving forces in Asian cities.

 The study identifies some general policy priorities for cities based on the results of case studies. https://www.apn-gcr.org/bulletin/article/trackinginfluences-of-asian-urban-greenhouse-gas-emissionsfor-sustainability-policies-preliminary-report/

Asian Institute of Technology

Project: Foundations for Climate Resilient and Sustainable Growing Settlements (U Res)

 10 Developing Key Principles of Climate Resilient and SustainableUrbanization

 The objectives are to provide guidance to decisionmakers who are responsible for addressing low carbon and climateresilient development in cities

 This guidance must be vetted-well in evidence-based science.

 Joint collaboration between prominent institutions in UK, Africa and Asia

Structure of each key principles

Co- Investigators:

Professor C Le Quere, University of East Anglia (PI)

Dr Joanne Clarke, University of East Anglia

Professor Richard Dawson, Newcastle University

Dr Oliver Wasonga, University of Nairobi

Dr Shobhakar Dhakal, Asian Institute of Technology

Dr Mark Tebboth, University of East Anglia

Partners

Funded by (UK)

The Context

Focus onAfrican Cities

International Conference on Climate Change and Cities

CitiesIPCC Conference, 5-7 March 2018, Edmonton, Canada

Co-chair of Scientific Steering Committee

Pathways for climate adaptation and mitigation in cities

This figure presents thestructure of the Global Research and Action Agenda on Cities and Climate ChangeScience.Theinner circle (orange) presentskey crosscutting issues and knowledge gaps for a step-change of knowledge generation on cities and climate change. The middle circle (multi-coloured) presents six topical research areas where moreevidence is needed to inform action. The external circle (green) presents threesuggested approaches that may facilitateimplementation ofthis Research and Action Agenda.

Co-creation between cities and climate change science achieves research and action agenda.

Hunter et al. (2022). Current Research in Environmental Sustainability

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crsust.2022.100189

Climate Change and Cities: Second Assessment Report of the Urban Climate Change Research Network Report (UCCRN)

 AIT Faculty co-led UCCRN’s Second Assessment Report on Climate Change in Cities

 A high profile global scientific knowledge synthesis for city policy makers

 Involving over 500 scientists over 20132017 from all continents

 A major global publication by Cambridge University Press in print in May 2018

Co-editor of Second Assessment

Member of Global Management Team (2013-17)

Understanding and Quantifying the Water Energy Carbon Nexus for Low Carbon Development in Asian Cities

 Characterizing nature of WEC Nexus in Bangkok, Delhi and Tokyo

 Quantifying the nexus to determine the extent of the direct and indirect importance and to exemplify the potentials of the nexus to the low carbon development in cities

 Gauzing the extent and relevancy of addressing the barrier and opportunities for optimizing the nexus, as well as influence the policy for lowcarbon development