Recently, the Award Ceremony Global of the Youth Summit on Net-Zero Future & the 3rd GAUC Graduate Forum (hereinafter the Climate x Summit) sponsored by the Global Alliance of Universities on Climate Change was successfully held. Cheng Danyang, Huo Jingwen, Cui Can and Deng Zhu, Ph.D. students from the Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, attended the theme forum of “Academic Track”, one of the core events of the summit and made a report. After the final evaluation, Cui Can and Deng Zhu won the Best Paper Award of this summit.

At the summit, Cheng Danyang delivered a report titled "Rising Cement Emissions in Future Emerging Economies", in which a global point source database of cement plants was built, and the carbon dioxide emissions and spatial-temporal distribution pattern of global cement plants in the latest years were estimated and analyzed. According to the report, with increasing demand of infrastructure construction, even in the extreme low-carbon emission scenario, the annual emissions of cement production in African countries will still grow rapidly, leading the emerging economies. The report proposed that developed countries should provide economic and technical support to African countries to help them meet the emission requirements under the global temperature control target of 1.5℃ or 2 ℃ proposed in the Paris Agreement.

 Huo Jingwen makes a report

Huo Jingwen rendered a report titled “Analysis of Carbon Emissions and Their Driving Factors Implied in International Service Trade”, which introduced the change trend of implied carbon emissions in international service trade from 2010 to 2018 and the analysis results of driving factors. The research shows that the increase of trade volume is the main factor for the increase of carbon emissions in service trade, and the decrease of emission intensity is the main driver for the decrease of carbon emissions in service trade. The report proposes: 1. The carbon emission reduction policy of service trade should be designed on the basis of the whole supply chain; 2. Regional cooperation should be strengthened to realize coordinated emission reduction of service trade; 3. Developing digital economy can reduce the implied emissions and reduce the trade cost of service trade.

 Participants of the theme forum on climate x sustainable development goals, with the reporter Cui Can at the lower-left

Cui Can gave a report titled "Global Emission Reduction Efforts Should Not Ignore Emerging Emitters”, which focused on small and medium-sized developing countries whose carbon emissions had been rapidly increasing in recent years. The research shows that the total carbon emissions of 59 emerging emitters, including Laos and Ethiopia, have surpassed that of India, the third largest emitter in the world. According to the research, even given the extreme use of low-carbon technologies, the rapid growth trend of emerging emitters will continue, and their emission level can hardly be controlled within the requirements of the target of 2℃ rise. The report proposed that developed countries, as historical emitters, should provide technical and economic assistance to these countries to achieve the global emission reduction targets.

Deng Zhu in his report introduced the world's first database for near-real-time monitoring of global carbon emissions. Based on the research of real-time activity data, a global carbon emission monitoring system has been established, which has realized the near real-time monitoring of global carbon emissions with day-by-day resolution. It is found that, affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the global carbon emissions decreased by 8.8% in the first half of 2020, and their short-term decline rate exceeded that of the Second World War and the 2008 financial crisis. With the gradual lifting of the lockdown policy, the global carbon dioxide emissions caused by human activities have rebounded rapidly, almost restored to the pre-pandemic level, and thus the challenge of coping with climate change will continue.

Deng Zhu addressed the Award Ceremony of the Climate x Summit

At the Award Ceremony, Deng Zhu reported his academic achievements and delivered a speech as the Best Paper Award winner of the Academic Track. He called on young scholars around the world to take action, enhance scientific understanding of climate change, conduct more in-depth research on climate change, and promote the transformation of scientific research results into climate mitigation practices. In addition, Sun Taochun, a doctoral student in the Department of Earth System Science, as a staff member of the Summit, took an active part in conference affairs work such as the liaison with the universities in the Alliance.

Written by Cui Can, Cheng Danyang, Huo Jingwen and Deng Zhu

Edited by Wang Jiayin

Checked by Lu Hui