CISCE focuses on deepening clean energy supply chain cooperation

A forum on clean energy was held on Tuesday during the China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE), the world's first national-level supply chain expo, which is being held in Beijing from November 28 to December 2. 

Themed "International Collaboration for Clean Energy Supply Chains," the forum attracted over 600 representatives from China's political, business, academic and research circles and representatives from abroad. 

As climate change is becoming increasingly severe, a new round of energy revolution with low-carbon and non-carbonized energy has been booming around the world. Developing clean energy has become the common choice of all countries. 

China pledged at the United Nations General Assembly in 2020 to strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. 

As the world's largest energy producer and consumer, the country has achieved leapfrog development in clean energy, hydropower, wind power, photovoltaics and biomass power generation, with nuclear power under development, and they all rank first in the world, said Zhang Shaogang, vice chairman of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), at the forum. 

He said China has become the world's largest clean energy market and equipment manufacturing country.  

In the first nine months of 2023, China's newly added installed capacity of renewable energy hit 172 million kilowatts, a 93 percent increase compared to the same period last year, according to data from the National Energy Administration. By the end of September, the country's total installed renewable energy capacity reached 1.38 billion kilowatts, which accounted for 49.6 percent of the country's total installed power generation capacity and exceeded that of coal-fired power. 

"China has been giving full play to its advantages in the integrated manufacturing scale of the entire new energy industry chain, strengthening international cooperation on clean energy, and promoting the green 'Belt and Road' construction," Zhang said. 

He said China has become an important force in stabilizing the global clean energy industry chain and supply chain, adding that the country has cooperated with more than 100 countries and regions on green energy projects. 

Experts at the forum believe that clean energy, including solar, wind and geothermal, will account for a large proportion of current and future energy development. 

"As long as one of these energy sources can be well utilized, it will be much greater than the energy generated by mineral resources, such as coal, oil and natural gas," Liu Jiaqi, an academic of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said at the forum. 

Liu called on countries to work hard on developing clean energy. 

"Cleaning energy that's not completely clean is also an important trend in energy development," he said, referring to traditional energy such as fossil fuel. 

Many countries plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. To achieve this goal, they have announced several energy and climate commitments that require massive investment. 

Margit Molnar, head of the China Desk at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Economics Department, believes the clean energy market is very promising.  

"According to the International Energy Agency's expectations, the clean energy technology market will reach $650 billion by 2030, and the number of clean energy manufacturing jobs will reach 14 million," she shared at the forum. 

A net-zero initiative was also released during the forum, aiming to make greater contributions to the higher-quality development of the clean energy industry chain. The initiative includes promoting the large-scale development of new energy, leading green and low-carbon development, accelerating the construction of a high-proportion new energy power system, and strengthening cooperation in the innovation of advanced new energy technologies.