Approved by the Ministry of Natural Resources, the First Institute of Oceanography (FIO) will continue to sponsor the International CLIVAR Project Office (ICPO) for the next five years.

CLIVAR is fully known as the "Climate and Ocean – Variability, Predictability and Change" project. Established in 1995, it is one of the four core projects of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), the world's top-level scientific programme in the field of climate change. It is aimed at raising people's awareness and enhancing prediction of atmosphere-ocean interaction and climate variability and change, and promoting sustainable development of human society and the environment. The most distinguished experts in marine and climate research worldwide have been attracted by CLIVAR and participated in the project, the research results of which are directly applied to the work reports of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). CLIVAR has important influence among both governments worldwide and international community.

Sponsored by FIO since 2014, ICPO has been running smoothly and yielded fruitful results in the past five years. In addition to actively managing, planning, coordinating and implementing CLIVAR activities, ICPO has also organized and completed the preparation of the CLIVAR Science Plan and Implementation Strategy for the new phase, and successfully held several major international conferences such as the CLIVAR Open Science Conference and the Young Scientists Forum. In addition, the ICPO has strengthened its contact with domestic institutions, identified the research results and cooperation needs of Chinese scientists in an active manner, and incorporated more Chinese scientists and research institutions into the global marine and climate change research network, so as to promote the participation of Chinese experts in the decision-making and planning of the CLIVAR project.

In the past five years since its establishment in China, ICPO has achieved satisfactory results, accumulated valuable experience for China in undertaking the organization of international institutions such as the large-scale international project office, and initiated a good start for Ministry of Natural Resources of China to cooperate with WCRP. Based on the previous successful experience, it is of great significance to continue to sponsor ICPO in order to expand international cooperation in the field of natural resources and support the relevant functions of the Ministry of Natural Resources.