On November 6th, Ocean Policy Research Institute (OPRI) held the official side event, The Ocean Decade: Catalysing Climate Action in Asia and the Pacific, at the COP26 Japan Pavilion. The discussions aimed to highlight the various ways in which the Decade of Ocean Science can help address climate change at the national and regional levels in the Asia-Pacific region, including the Pacific SIDS.
 
The program started with a welcome address from Dr. Hide Sakaguchi, President of OPRI, followed by keynote speeches from Dr. Satyendra Prasad, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Fiji to the United Nations, and Dr. Margaret Leinen, Director of Scripps Institute of Oceanography.
The subsequent panel discussion was moderated by Dr. Alison Clausen, Deputy Coordinator, IOC-UNESCO, and featured commentators Dr. Yutaka Michida, Professor at the Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute of the University of Tokyo, Dr. Stephen Widdicombe, Director of Science at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Dr. Kazuo Nadaoka, Professor Emeritus and specially appointed professor from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and Dr. Wenche Gronbrekk, Global Head of Sustainable Development in Cermaq Group and a member of UN Global Impact.
The event came to a close with a speech by Dr. Vladimir Ryabinin, Executive Secretary of IOC-UNESCO.

We are also pleased to announce that we have received the livestream of the event from the COP26 Japan Pavilion, and have uploaded it onto our YouTube channel.