From October 30th to November 1, the 3^rd World Laureates Forum, initiated by the Association of Top World Scientists and hosted by the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, was held in Shanghai. On November 1, Peng Gong, Dean of the School of Science and Dean of the Department of Earth System Science (DESS), Tsinghua University, was invited to attend and deliver a speech at this forum climate summit. This forum was conducted in a combination of online and offline, including 61 Nobel Prize winners, 137 top scientific award winners, more than 30 domestic academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and more than 100 outstanding young people in the world Scientists participate.

Figure 1 Video screenshot: Group photo of participating scientists. From left to right and top to bottom are David Gross, Simon Levin, Graham Farquhar, David Zilberman, and Peng Gong.

The climate summit of this World Laureates Forum has the theme of “Where to Go: Climate Change and Human Destiny”, five scientists including David Gross, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics, Simon Levin, winner of the 2005 Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, Graham Farquhar, winner of the 2017 Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, David Zilberman, winner of the 2019 Wolf Prize in Agriculture, and Peng Gong, Dean of the School of Science and DESS of Tsinghua University, attended the forum and delivered speeches.

Figure 1. Video screenshot: Peng Gong delivering a speech

In his speech, Peng Gong first introduced the relationship between the earth, mankind and nature. He said that human health and the health of the earth system should be regarded as one, and everyone can and should protect the earth. Regardless of whether it is for scientists, individuals or business society, they can promote climate change in a better direction through corresponding measures. In his speech, he shared that the research team of Tsinghua University spent five years studying the water environment security boundaries of China's provinces. In addition, Peng Gong also introduced the climate change report published in The Lancet, which clarified the angle and measures of the country and individuals to cope with climate change.

Peng Gong emphasized that the health problems of the earth can be dealt with and need to be dealt with. Governments, enterprises, and individuals can all play a very good role. He pointed out that the next two major challenges: one is the compound impact of multiple environmental changes on human health; the other is how to measure the impact with the help of computational data and quantitative tools to assist developing countries in environmental decision-making.

At the same time, Peng Gong also shared China's experience in the forum. He said that it may be difficult for scientific researchers to directly face the public from institutions, but the role of the media and even news dissemination institutions in universities should be emphasized. In China, intensifying the awareness of earth protection through imperceptible public education in the media has a significant effect in cultivating public awareness. But its limitation is that the public's understanding of "why" is not in place, which also affects the implementation of specific measures to a certain extent.

The World Laureates Forum started in 2018 and is held in Shanghai, China from October 29th to 31st every year. It has become a high-level scientific event for scientists in the world.

Reviewers: Wu Haiping

Editor: Wang Jiayin