By Dr Tek Maraseni

When I was a high school student in a small town in Nepal, I knew nothing about Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), but I noticed the work of Chinese technicians who were building the Mugling-Narayangarh Highway at that time and I was impressed by their hard work, honesty and dedication. After that I learned more about China and its increasing popularity. By the late 1990s, I knew that CAS was a prominent research organization in China and around the world, but it was when I got a chance to meet researchers during my first visit to China in 2008 my affection for CAS grew immensely. It was on the “Queensland – China Climate Change Fellowship Program”, the result of a memorandum of understanding signed by the Premier and Cabinet Dept (DPC), Queensland, Australia and Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), China. I received one of three prestigious fellowships for the research in “Exploring opportunities and challenges of Australia or Australian companies with the Chinese Clean Development [CDM] projects”.

With the fellowship, I visited China from December 17, 2008 to January 14, 2009, at the invitation of the MOST’s Administrative Centre for China’s Agenda 21 (ACCA21) in Beijing. Previously, in the second half of 2008, as part of the same fellowship, I had the opportunity to play host to three Chinese scientists -- Dr Gao Xinquan from ACCA21 in Beijing, Prof Yue Qun of East China Normal University in Shanghai, and Prof Wu Wenxiang of CAS in Beijing. Now, I am in Beijing and able to speak at the Academy of Social Sciences, CAS’s Geographical Science and Natural Resource Institute, ACCA21, Shanghai University, and the Central University of Economics and Finance. My topics include “Opportunities & challenges of involving Australian companies in Chinese CDM projects”, “Crops, cows or timber? Including carbon values in land use choices” and "Pyrolysis of organic wastes: From pollution to climate change solution".

My dream of cooperating with CAS began to materialize in 2009 when I met Prof Qu Jiansheng in Queensland under the fellowship program. Then in 2011, during a month-long Climate Change Professional Fellows Program in the United States sponsored by the State Department, I represented Australia and Qu represented China and we became very close quite quickly and even shared a room part of the time since our interests were the same. I found Qu to be one of the most insightful, motivated environmental scientists I had met and decided to work with him and, as a result, I was appointed as a Visiting Professor at CAS’s Lanzhou branch on April 17, 2012. Then, in 2013, my dream came true when I received a CAS award “Visiting Professor for Senior International Scientist” . This award was the result of a “Household carbon emissions” proposal that Qu and I submitted and, since then, I have been  visiting China occasionally to develop CAS research profiles and have co-authored seven peer-reviewed journal papers with Chinese authors, four of them with Qu.

Our international journal paper “A comparison of trends and magnitudes of household carbon emissions between China, Canada and the UK” provides important policy feedback for climate change negotiations and for why China should not be penalized for its high carbon emissions. Chinese households contribute only a small portion of the national emissions and, as a production-based economy, its products are consumed elsewhere so China should not be responsible for emissions related to offshore consumption. Another international journal paper Qu and I authored —— “A comparison of household carbon emission patterns of urban and rural China over the 17 year period (1995–2011)” —— suggests a huge disparity in household consumption and carbon emissions between rural and urban China, so, in developing energy consumption and emissions reduction policies, we need a principle of fairness and equity.

Words cannot begin to describe my happiness in working with CAS. The staff are really energetic, hardworking and diligent. My first day in the office left me speechless when I saw their kindness and generosity towards me, but what surprised me most was their hospitality which continues to grow. Every staff member and student is amazingly helpful. I never imagined people could be that helpful, for example, if I share a problem with them they would drop whatever they are doing, no matter how urgent, and help me immediately. Working with CAS is a gift from God and when I am with the staff and students, I feel completely at home as if I were a part of their family.

I have a big room, a powerful computer, and a printer for my office and full access to CAS resources and can draw on the expertise of staff and students. CAS has also provided a fully-furnished apartment. The love and respect of CAS have inspired and motivated me in doing some cutting-edge research and I am truly touched by the way they treat me and have been thinking of settling permanently in Lanzhou. I brought my wife Saru Ghimire and son Shushobhan Maraseni to see whether they might share my feelings and they were thrilled by the Chinese hospitality and family environment. My wife teaches child-care in Australia and now she has the idea of arranging a top-quality childcare centre in Lanzhou. We still don’t know when, but we’re sure that one day we’ll call Lanzhou home. Before making the move, I need to study Chinese language and the Bing search engine.

In any case, CAS is an ideal organisation to work with for the followings: first, it’s China’s largest and best research organization or even the world’s; second, it is multidisciplinary and provides many opportunities for me and my work; third, my diverse academic and research interests fit with many of CAS’s research branches, most importantly; forth, it provides ideal working conditions for me in flexibility and topics. I salute all the hardworking dedicated people who have made CAS the global hallmark of research that it is and I feel proud and privileged to be a part of the CAS team. I also feel a huge responsibility in contributing to CAS, especially in view of what I have already achieved. And my message to top researchers all over the world is: if you get the opportunity to work with CAS, even if it is just a small one, seize the opportunity because your work will flourish and you will never look back.