Deng Zhu, a member of the Communist Party of China, graduated from the Department of Earth System Science (DESS), Tsinghua University with a doctoral degree in 2022. He obtained his bachelor’s degree from the School of Geographic Science and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, and was recommended (without examination) to study in the Master's Program in Ecology in DESS, Tsinghua University in 2016. He was enrolled in the PhD Program in Ecology in 2019, studying in the research direction of the construction of high-resolution carbon emission inventory. He has won the Best Paper Award of the Global Zero Carbon Youth Summit and addressed the closing ceremony of the summit as a representative. His other honors include the National Scholarship for Graduate Students, Beijing Merit Student, Tsinghua University Jiang Nanxiang Scholarship etc. In addition, he has published four papers as first author in prestigious journals such as Nature Communications, Nature Geoscience, and Earth System Science Data.

学术研究：打造监测全球气候变化的“碳测器”

Academic research: Building a "carbon detector" for monitoring global climate change

Timely, rich and accurate carbon emission data is not only the basis of scientific research on climate change, but also a "yardstick" for measuring emission reduction responsibilities of countries. With traditional accounting methods, carbon emission data may be subject to such problems as poor timeliness, low resolution and poor accuracy. During his doctoral study, Deng Zhu, under the guidance of Associate Professor Liu Zhu, carried out the doctoral project of "Near-real-time anthropogenic carbon emission accounting and application". Integrating multi-source data fusion and multi-method coupling, Deng Zhu and his classmates in the research group have established a set of real-time quantitative evaluation model and data system of anthropogenic carbon emissions, and estimated the changes in daily carbon dioxide emissions worldwide and in major countries since 2019, which provided near-real-time and day-scale methods and data support for dynamically tracking the changes in global anthropogenic carbon emissions and deeply exploring the patterns of human carbon emissions. The data set of "Carbon Monitor" based on the real-time quantitative evaluation model has been reported twice by Nature, and has been adopted as basic data by international research institutions such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Global Carbon Organization (GCP).

Deng Zhu believes that these research results would not have been achieved without the guidance of the tutor and the cooperation of the members of the research group, as well as his own efforts. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with the crucial period of his research. Previous face-to-face communication was changed to online communication, posing great challenges to the advancement of research work. In order to achieve results as soon as possible, the research group raced against time, and the supervisor and Deng Zhu “communicated with each other at least once a day” to solve problems arising in the research in time. In addition, Deng Zhu actively coordinated the time of the members of the research group at home and abroad, organized discussions, collected questions and reported progress in time to ensure the efficient and smooth proceeding of the research work.

Deng Zhu and his supervisor, Associate Professor Liu Zhu.

Student Work: "Persistence is Cool"

Deng Zhu loves to participate in student work, having served fellow students in the capacity of the chairman of the DESS Graduate Student Union, assistant of moral education in the graduate student affairs office, Tsinghua University, and monitor of Class 16 of the DESS Graduate Program for six consecutive years. When he was chairman of the DESS Graduate Student Union, he set the goal of “Small Department, Big Brand”, and cooperated with other departments in the school to increase the exposure of their jobs. For example, in response to students' concern about the relationship between supervisors and students, the DESS Graduate Student Union launched the "Noon Canteen" lunch exchange meeting between the faculty and students, which promoted the communication between teachers and students, and was well received and loved by them. The activity mode has been replicated and promoted in many other departments. In view of the fact that students mostly have activities with their respective research group as a unit, the DESS Graduate Student Union has established the DESS Fitness Groups with “students under one supervisor” as a unit. Many teachers and students still keep the habit of daily report of their fitness activities in the group ...

In Deng Zhu's view, it takes "Perseverance" to accomplish a task. During the 5th China Postgraduate Forum on Global Change hosted by the DESS Graduate Student Union, the preparatory team was confronted with a huge challenge: the day before the announcement of the first round of meetings, the preparatory team was told that the original conference service website could not be launched as scheduled. It was impossible to find another service provider, and Deng Zhu, the leader of the preparatory group, immediately decided to develop their own website. Despite the lack of website development experience with most team members and the questioning voices, Deng insisted on this decision and encouraged the team to actively teach themselves to explore the project. As a result, the team stayed up all night, from renting a server to designing the architecture, from collecting materials to deploying the front and back ends, and finally succeeded in launching the conference website and submission system online on schedule the next day. This website not only became an exquisite conference publicity portal, but also ensured the development of follow-up related work. Deng Zhu deeply realized that "it's not difficult to give up, but it's a cool thing to persist," when he typed in “Produced by the DESS Graduate Student Union, Tsinghua University” at the bottom of the website page.

Deng Zhu (first from the left in the back row) took a group photo with the preparatory team of the 5th China Postgraduate Forum on Global Change

Social Practice: Broaden Global Vision and Experience Global Changes

Deng Zhu has been actively participating in social practices. He participated in the overseas "Zhi Xing" (Knowledge and Practice) program of graduate students, and went to Brazil to to investigate the situation of Chinese-funded enterprises, and tell Chinese stories to Brazilian youth. He also participated in overseas summer practice of doctoral students, and went to Country Garden Forest City, Malaysia for internship practice. In addition, he organized and led a delegation of doctoral candidates from Tsinghua University, named "Going to the Ocean", to visit many marine government departments and research institutions in Shanghai, Hangzhou and Xiamen.

In 2019, in a workshop of young scholars held in Indonesia, Deng Zhu conducted in-depth research on climate adaptation actions taken for urban waterlogging in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. Due to global warming, the global sea level rises, and the frequency of extreme weather events increases. Jakarta as a coastal city threatened by frequent and powerful floods has become a "sinking city". In the process of investigation, Deng Zhu saw many people being displaced or even bereaved by floods. The government's inefficient dredging and domestic garbage blocking rivers further aggravated the risk of waterlogging disaster. Faced with the threat of rising sea level gradually swallowing up the land boundary, the government had no choice but to relocate the capital. Deng Zhu’s research experience enabled him to deeply realize the importance of building a Community of Shared Futures for Mankind, and strengthened his determination to carry out research work related to global change.

Deng Zhu (first from the left in the front row) organized key moral education assistants (freshman assistants) of Tsinghua University to take a study tour in Pudong, Shanghai.

While leaving the campus, Deng Zhu is deeply grateful to Tsinghua because during his six years of study and life here he has not only gained knowledge and skills, but also grown up into a "Tsinghua fellow" of independent thinking, commitment and dedication. In the future work, he will continue to carry forward the Tsinghua spirit of "self-improvement and social commitment" and strive to make greater progress in the field of “carbon neutrality and carbon peaking”.

Contributed by Deng Zhu, Research Group, Department of

Earth System Science

Edited by Wang Jiayin

Reviewwed by Chen Yawei, Yu Le, Lu Hui and Zhang Qiang