China News Service, Guangzhou, October 28. Title: Experts and scholars in Guangzhou discuss how zero-carbon energy can drive the next round of global growth
China News Service reporter Wang Jie
"Split the cake or make it bigger?" When climate negotiations fell into a zero-sum game over carbon budget allocation, an international conference held in Guangzhou tried to give another answer. The three-day international conference on "Zero Carbon Prosperity: Consensus and Pathways" entered its final stage at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) on the 28th. The conference brought together scholars, policymakers, international organizations and industry representatives from many countries to explore new ways to drive growth with zero-carbon energy rather than only constraining development with emission reductions.
The starting point of this concept was half a year ago: in April this year, at the first "International Conference on Transition from Fossil Fuels" in Santa Marta, Colombia, the HKUST (Guangzhou) team proposed "zero-carbon prosperity", which triggered a positive response. This Guangzhou conference pushed it from concept to theoretical framework and policy practice.
"Economic development and welfare protection require energy services, not carbon." Pan Jiahua, acting director of the Global Climate Strategy Center of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), broke the deadlock - the carbon budget is limited under the 1.5°C target, and countries' competition for emission rights is essentially "sharing the cake." However, photovoltaics, energy storage, and electric vehicles are accelerating to form a zero-carbon industrial chain that can replace fossil fuels, changing the climate issue from "reducing emissions" to "using new energy to make the cake bigger." China’s “Three New Things” have proven that zero-carbon industries can be decoupled from fossil carbon emissions and become a new engine of growth.
Qin Dahe, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, adds urgency from the perspective of climate risks: Glacier retreat and extreme weather are impacting water resources, food and public health, while countries are also burdened with energy security, employment and poverty reduction tasks. He expects the meeting to produce a “testable and measurable” framework rather than just a concept.
The differences and difficulties focus on "whether prosperity can be shared." Pushpam Kumar, a professor at the University of Sussex in the UK, reminded that the comprehensive benefits of the zero-carbon transition may exceed the costs, but it will not automatically benefit the global South - high financing costs, weak infrastructure and imbalanced income distribution are still the threshold. Zhao Changwen, chair professor of Sun Yat-sen University, proposed "dual-track transformation of industrialization and zero-carbon prosperity": Developing countries do not have to choose one or the other. They can transform carbon constraints into industrial competitiveness through direct green power supply, zero-carbon parks, and technology transfer.
During the meeting, two "South-North-South" round tables brought the discussion to the operational level. One focused on paths and prospects, talking about wind and solar storage cost reduction, equity in critical minerals, and new power systems; the other talked about just transformation, focusing on green financing, employment replacement, and capacity building to avoid transformation from amplifying the gap between the north and the south. The dialogue pointed to the same logic: Zero carbon is not a cost burden, but whether it is "prosperous" depends on whether opportunities can sink to remote areas, small and medium-sized industries, and low-income countries.
In addition, participants visited fully automated terminals and supercharging stations in Nansha to see how zero-carbon technology is embedded in ports, transportation and manufacturing scenarios. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) is also turning the campus itself into a testing ground, using the "production-intelligence-use-storage" system to verify the replicability of zero-carbon communities and industrial parks.
