On October 25, Prof. Juzhi Hou, head of the Paleoecology and Human Adaptation Team of Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and Executive Director of the Association for Trans-Eurasia Exchange and Silk Road Civilization Development (ATES), and colleagues, attended the opening ceremony of the China-Pakistan Joint Research Center on Earth Science (CPJRC) in Islamabad, Pakistan.The team also attended the three-day International Conference on Climate Change and Disaster Risk, which was organized by CPJRC, the International Association for Hydro-Environmental Engineering and Research (IAHR), the Higher Education Commission (HEC), the Pakistan Academy of Science (PAS), and Quaid-i-Azam University. The conference focused on climate change and its disaster effects, the impact of climate change on the protection of cultural heritage, the physical processes and mechanism of natural disasters, prevention and control technologies of new types of disasters and their applications, disaster risk management, flood and drought disasters and their response, etc., to discuss the impact of climate change on natural disasters, reduce disaster risks, and raise people's awareness of disaster prevention and reduction.

CPJRC is established by CAS and Higher Education Commission of Pakistan in 2019. It serves as the bridge and platform of scientific research and education cooperation between China and Pakistan in the field of earth sciences which focuses on such areas as natural disasters, climate change and ecological environment deterioration to provide scientific decision-making and engineering technical support for the construction of the "Belt and Road" and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and provides scientific and technological support for the sustainable development of the region. The research center is hosted by Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IMHE, CAS), and is located at Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU), Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan. ITPCAS is one of the council members.

During the conference, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between ATES and National Centre of Excellence in Geology (NCEG), University of Peshawar was signed by Prof. Juzhi Hou, Executive Director of ATES and Prof. Liaqat Ali, Director of the NCEG. NCEG is an academic institution of higher education and research in Geosciences, established in 1976 under the Federal Parliament Act 1974. NCEG is located at the University of Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The MoU is to formalize cooperation between the two organizations, which will promote and enhance the collaboration, and advance the knowledge base in the field of Earth System and Environmental Sciences.