2022 Tianfu Carbon Neutrality Forum Is Successfully Held in Chengdu

On March 27, 2022 Tianfu Carbon Neutrality Forum was held in Chengdu successfully. Seventeen academicians at home and abroad were invited to this conference to offer suggestions and advice for achieving the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals in Sichuan Province. Lu Xinming, Deputy Director of Climate Change Division for Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China; Liu Quansheng, Deputy Secretary-General of the People’s Government of Sichuan Province; He Kebin, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering; and Zhou Xianyi, Secretary of the CPC Working Committee of Sichuan Tianfu New Area, attended the conference and delivered speeches. Zhang Yuanhang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Director of Tianfu Yongxing Laboratory, presided over the opening ceremony.

This forum is initiated by Tianfu Yongxing Laboratory, and jointly organized by Sichuan University, Southwest Jiaotong University, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu University of Technology, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, and Tsinghua Sichuan Energy Internet Research Institute. The theme of this forum centered on the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, building a dual platform for academic exchanges and mutual learning in the field of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality around cutting-edge technology at home and abroad, creating a new highland where scientific and technological innovation of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality and urban development achieve each other, positively exploring new paths for the development of green and low-carbon industries, promoted new revolutions, and facilitating the high-quality development of China’s green and low-carbon industries. This forum included the opening ceremony, the main forum, and six parallel sub-forums. By taking the forms of combining report meeting and seminar, as well as on-spot conference and online live streaming, the conference attracted over 800 people including well-known experts and scholars from universities, scientific research institutes, and enterprise representatives from domestic and foreign green and low-carbon fields to get together.

Three experts including Professor He Kebin, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Director of the Academic Committee of Tianfu Yongxing Laboratory; Huang Jing, Director of the Administrative Center for China’s Agenda 21 of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China; and Michael B McElroy, an academician of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a professor of Environmental Studies of Harvard University, gave keynote speeches respectively. Academician He Kebin conducted a comprehensive analysis and elaboration on the opportunities and challenges of technology empowerment and carbon neutrality with the title Technology Empowers Carbon Neutrality: Opportunities and Challenges. He stated that to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality, the global countries were all faced with three major challenges such as the innovation of key core technology, key materials required in the supply chain of the new energy industry, and ecological environment evolution under the constraints of the carbon neutrality paths. Director Huang Jing expounded the construction of China’s technology systems of carbon neutrality from chief background and technology systems. Huang Jing pointed out that the low carbon we pursued was to achieve the high-quality development without affecting the quality of economic development, and meanwhile paid attention to the relationship between technology, policies, and markets, which aimed at realizing innovations in science and technology and the source of disruptive technology, so as to truly change the impossibility of science and technology into possibility. Michael B McElroy expressed in Charting the Path to a Zero Carbon Future that in order to cope with climate change, we had to seek out alternative energy sources, such as wind energy, solar energy, onshore and offshore wind energy while emphasizing urban sustainable development and making greater efforts in multiple aspects of social science and natural science.

Shi Bi, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Deputy Director of the Academic Committee of Tianfu Yongxing Laboratory presided over the roundtable forum. Five experts including Zhai Wanming, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering, and a committee member of the Academic Committee of Tianfu Yongxing Laboratory; Zhang Liehui, President of Southwest Petroleum University; Xi Beidou, Deputy Director of Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences; Zhao Lechen, Chief Engineer and a member of the Party Group of the Department of Ecology and Environment of Sichuan Province; and Wang Yongping, Director of Sichuan Research Institute for New Power Systems, participated in the discussion and made wonderful sharing and thorough exchanges on how to bring Sichuan’s advantages into full play in‘carbon neutrality technology and green and low-carbon development’.

During the parallel sub-forums held on the afternoon, led by 6 experts respectively, a total of 38 experts delivered keynote speeches on six major research fields in ‘Clean and Low-carbon Energy, Resource Carbon Neutrality, Carbon Capture and Utilization, Carbon Sink and Geological Carbon Sequestration, Pollution and Carbon Reduction Synergy, and Integrated Coupling under Carbon Neutrality’. Experts consistently agreed that Sichuan owned the advantages of resources and industrial endowments in green and low-carbon development with features including scientific and reasonable top-level design, early layout, and fast startup, which has realized scenario application in scientific and technological innovation achievements and met the first-mover conditions for development.

This forum is a pivotal window for Tianfu Yongxing Laboratory to exchange externally and also an important part of the 20th Western China Overseas Hi-Tech and High Talents Conference. As an academic communication platform founded by the Laboratory for positively serving the “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality” policy, Tianfu Carbon Neutrality Forum is expected to become an academic forum brand with a wide range of influence in the field carbon neutrality, continues to support Sichuan to attract more high-end resources, promotes the core technology R&D, accelerates to connect the ‘last kilometer’ between scientific research achievements and industrial upgrading, and depicts a new chapter for Sichuan’s green and low-carbon development.

Relevant leaders from Sichuan Provincial Party Committee Organization Department of CPC, Science & Technology Department of Sichuan province, Department of P Ecology and Environment of Sichuan province, Chengdu Municipal Science and Technology Bureau, Chengdu Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau, Sichuan Tianfu New Area Administrative Committee, and representatives of research work from well-known universities inside and outside Sichuan Province attended this conference.