The Global PM2.5 Research and Governance Conference, namely AGU JING (Joint International Network in Geosciences) Meeting (AJM2018), was successfully held from 16-20 October 2018 in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. This was jointly organised by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).AGU is the most influential academic organisation of geosciences in the world, with nearly 60,000 members worldwide in the fields of atmospheric sciences, oceanography, space sciences, solid earth sciences, and planetary studies. As climate change, atmospheric pollution and other large-scale environmental challenges have become more severe and widespread, on the occasion of AGU's 100th year of establishment, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and AGU are co-organising a special session of AGU JING 2018, namely the ‘Global Conference on PM2.5 Research and Governance’, with the conference theme as follows The theme of the conference is ‘China's Atmospheric PM2.5 Changes, Impacts, and Prevention and Control in a Global Perspective’, which aims to bring together global forces to find solutions to global environmental degradation and threats to human health and well-being. The conference is hosted by the Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences (IEES) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and the conference organising committee is chaired by researcher Cao Junji and the scientific steering committee is chaired by Prof. Mario Molina. The conference was co-organised by the State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary, the Key Laboratory of Aerosol Chemistry and Physics of CAS, and Jiangsu Zhongke Nate Environmental Science and Technology Co., Ltd, and was supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and the Xi'an Municipal Government.
The conference brought together the world's top experts in the fields of PM2.5 research, air pollution, atmospheric chemistry, model simulation, pollution control, aerosol technology, etc. About 800 people from more than 20 countries and regions all over the world attended the conference, and received more than 450 abstracts, more than 180 oral presentations, and more than 270 poster reports. Mr Zhang Gangzhu, Chairman of Tianhou, was invited to attend and make a brief speech.
The Global PM2.5 Research and Governance Conference is one of the top events in the field of PM2.5 research and governance in the world. Mario Molina, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry/Taylor Prize, Member of the National Academy of Sciences and Professor at the University of San Diego, California, was invited to give a lecture on ‘Air Quality and Climate Change: Science and Politics’.
This AGU special meeting set up a high-level exchange platform in the field of PM2.5 research and management, allowing Chinese scientists to get close access to the international leading atmospheric science theories and advanced control technologies, and the participants have expressed great benefits. The success of the conference greatly promoted the high-level cooperation between Chinese and global scientists, exchanged the latest achievements and high technologies in the field of PM2.5, promoted the further development of China's atmospheric and environmental sciences, and better served the national air pollution prevention and control and the battle for blue sky.