On November 16, 2021, the Department of Geosciences of Tsinghua University and the Global System Institute of University of Exeter jointly held the "Seminar on Carbon Neutralization" online. The meeting was presided over by Professor Luo Yong of the Department of Geosciences and Professor Mark Baldwin, Director Assistant of the Global System Institute of University of Exeter. Professor Yang Jun, Associate Professors Wang Han, Liu Zhu and Li Wei of the Department of Geosciences, Associate Professor Teng Fei, Deputy Director of the Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy of Tsinghua University, Senior Lecturer Anna Harper, Lecturer Ricardo Safra de Campos, Professor Gallego-Sala Angela, and Senior Lecturer Jean-Francois Mercure of the Global System Institute of University of Exeter attended the meeting. There were 44 online attendees.

In the opening speech, Professor Luo Yong said that the Department of Geosciences of Tsinghua University has been in good partnership with University of Exeter of the UK, and the joint doctoral program run by both parties has witnessed certain achievements. This seminar aimed to strengthen the further cooperation between both parties, and jointly discuss the hot topics such as the realization path of carbon neutralization and the mitigation measures against climate change.

Associate Professor Liu Zhu talked about the real-time monitoring of global carbon dioxide emission and the carbon accounting database of China, the climate risks and climate changes caused by the COVID-19 epidemic. Senior Lecturer Jean-Francois Mercure briefed the macroeconomic impact of low-carbon innovation and technological renovation policies, energy innovation, the modeling of global energy economic and environmental system, climate and environment economic policies, and the study of climate policies and environment governance in the view of social sciences. Associate Professor Teng Fei estimated the avoidable economic losses to China under the carbon neutralization objective in his report, and pointed out that with the aggravation of climate change trend in the future, the impact of climate change will be more and more severe on China's economy. Senior Lecturer Anna Harper introduced the interactions among vegetation, climate and human, how plants respond to extreme climates, the process of climate change trend, and the prediction of future environment changes. Associate Professor Li Wei explained the use of coupled earth system model simulation to find that global bioenergy crop cultivation has a biophysical cooling effect. Associate Professor Wang Han introduced the understanding of the optimality of ecological evolution, the prediction of the carbon process of ecological system, the improvement of vegetation simulation and land surface model, the change pattern of the study of plant functional traits along the environmental gradient and its drive mechanism. Professor Gallego-Sala Angela pointed out that peatland protection is of vital importance to the achievement of carbon neutralization objective, and explained the important role of peatland in achieving zero net emission. Lecturer Ricardo Safra de Campos introduced the impact of human activities on the earth's environment as well as the significance and strategies of environmental protection.

In his summary, Professor Luo Yong said that the 26th Conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change had opened a new journey in global climate governance, and it was hoped that scholars and students of both parties further strength the exchange and cooperation in global change, carbon neutralization, environmental economics, ecosystem, etc. to create more opportunities for project cooperation between China and the UK.

Screenshot of the Video Conference

                                                      Prepared/Photographed by: Xu Meng

                                                          Edited by: Wang Jiayin

Checked by: Huang Xiaomeng