BERLIN, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- China played an important role in facilitating the final signing of the Paris Agreement, and will "100 percent" fulfill its promises on climate action, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here on Friday in an interview with Reuters. China is the largest developing country, and the process of industrialization has not yet been completed, Wang said, noting that it is necessary to speed up the development process so that the Chinese people can lead a better life. Meanwhile, China, as a major country, is willing to shoulder its due international responsibilities and obligations, Wang said. For a country with a population of 1.4 billion, fulfilling its promises on reducing emissions is the biggest contribution to the world and the human development, Wang said. China has completed its annual emission reduction target per unit of GDP ahead of schedule over the past years, and it is now home to half of the world's new energy vehicles. Its installed capacity for renewable energy accounts for one third of the world's total amount, Wang said. China joined the international community in combating climate change with solid actions, not with slogans, Wang noted. He also said China insists on the new development concepts of innovation, coordination, green development, openness and sharing, and strives to realize sustainable and high-quality development. China and Europe have complementary advantages on green development, and China is willing to strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation in this regard, he said.  Source: Renmin Author: Xinhua  Date: February 16, 2020

BEIJING, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- If you want to see where global warming is happening, look to the seas. The world's oceans in 2019 were the warmest in recorded human history, a new article said Tuesday. Conducted by an international team of 14 scientists from 11 institutes worldwide, the study also found that global ocean temperatures keep rising and speeding up. According to the article published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, the global ocean temperatures in 2019 were about 0.075 degrees Celsius higher than the average from 1981 to 2010. To make such a tiny temperature change happen, the Earth's oceans have absorbed a huge amount of heat equal to 3.6 billion Hiroshima atom bomb explosions, said Cheng Lijing, lead author of the article and researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "This measured ocean warming is irrefutable and is further proof of global warming," Cheng said. Data used in the study were recorded by China's IAP and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A new method allowed the researchers to examine warmth trends dating back to the 1950s. Records for ocean warming have been broken almost yearly since 2017. The study also found that over the past six decades, the world's oceans have increased in temperature on average by 450 percent, and the past five years have been the warmest on record. "If you want to understand global warming, you have to measure ocean warming," said John Abraham, co-author and professor at the University of St. Thomas in the United States. He stressed that ocean warming is an important indicator of global climate change since the vast majority of global heat ends up in the oceans. The effects of global warming are already appearing and will continue in 2020 in the form of more extreme weather, rising sea levels and losses of ocean animals. Marine heatwaves in the North Pacific in 2013, hurricanes near the Gulf of Mexico in 2017 and the recent catastrophic fires in Australia are the major consequences of global warming, said the researchers who also called for global action to reverse climate change in the article. "There are no reasonable alternatives apart from the human emissions of heat-trapping gases to explain this heating," Cheng said. "The more we reduce greenhouse gasses, the less the oceans will warm," said Cheng, suggesting that reduce, reuse and recycle are the major ways forward to clean-energy development. However, humans can work to reverse their effect on the climate, but the oceans will take a longer time to respond than the atmosphere and dry land. Researchers will further examine how warming impacts oceans beyond temperature. They plan to study how water temperatures affect the water's buoyancy, which directly affects the distribution of nutrients and heat. Source: Xinhua Date: JAN-14-2020

A total of 316,000 households in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region benefited from the local coal-to-electricity conversion project in 2019. Last March, Xinjiang launched the three-year project in four poverty-stricken prefectures in the south of the region to increase the clean energy use for winter heating. About 4.6 billion yuan (around 663 million U.S. dollars) were allocated last year to construct and upgrade power grids in the farming and ranching areas in the four prefectures, involving 224 townships and 1,205 villages. The energy conversion project is of positive significance to the local ecological environment. Every year, it will reduce the consumption of 425,000 tonnes of standard coal, cutting down the emission of carbon dioxide by 1.06 million tonnes, sulfur dioxide by 32,000 tonnes and dust by 289,000 tonnes. In 2020, the four prefectures will complete the conversion of coal to electricity for 288,600 households, realizing the target of energy conversion for 900,000 households by 2021. Source: Xinhua Date: Jan-10-2020

A media team from Turkey concluded its one-week trip to China on Nov. 24, 2019, during which time journalists from the Turkish Ahaber Channel visited SPIC’s Shanghai and Shandong nuclear power projects, focusing on China’s independent CAP1400 nuclear power technology and nuclear power plant operation safety. According to data from the Turkish government, more than 20 percent of the country's total energy demand is satisfied by coal power, which remains the primary source of electricity in Turkey. However, its negative impact on the environment also plagues Turkey. Data shows that each 1GW-class nuclear power plant only needs about 30 tonnes of nuclear fuel each year, while a thermal power station of the same size has to burn 3 million tonnes of coal each year. In addition, coal combustion brings emissions of CO2, SO2 and other gases, which puts pressure on the environment. A poll conducted in 2018 by Konda, a climate information center and research company in Turkey, showed that most Turks were worried about climate change. In this context, as an efficient and clean energy source, nuclear power is gradually receiving attention in Turkey. In recent years, the country, which has been working to improve the domestic energy supply system, is actively developing nuclear power and has already built two nuclear power plants. Meanwhile, in China, the nuclear power industry is facing strategic opportunities as a complete and mature nuclear power industry system has been established. China’s capacities for both major nuclear power equipment manufacturing and nuclear power plant construction are first in the world. Xu Yuming, Deputy Director of the Expert Committee of the China Nuclear Energy Association, believes that it is the right time for China to develop its global nuclear power industry, as the demand for nuclear power is growing around the world. For instance, the Vice Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Department of Turkey led a delegation to visit SPIC’s headquarter in 2017, at the same time as China was planning to participate in the construction of Turkey’s third nuclear power plant. According to official data, some 45 countries worldwide, including China and Turkey, are now actively considering the promotion of nuclear energy projects. In light of this, China-Turkey cooperation in nuclear energy has been added to the agenda. At the “Belt and Road” Energy Ministerial Conference in October 2018, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated that Turkey fully supports the “Belt and Road” Initiative and is trying to integrate it with Turkey’s “Middle Corridor” Project. The fast dovetailing of the “Belt and Road” Initiative and Turkey’s “Middle Corridor” Project provides a huge opportunity for the two countries to deepen their nuclear energy cooperation. Recently, in an exclusive interview with People’s Daily Overseas Edition, the Turkish Ambassador to China Emin Onen expressed that Turkey hopes to strengthen cooperation with China in nuclear power in the future. On August 21, the Chinese Nuclear Society announced that by the end of June 2019, the Chinese mainland had 47 nuclear power units in operation with an installed capacity of 48.73GW, ranking third in the world. “China’s independent innovation system for nuclear power has been continuously improved,” said Wang Shoujun, Chairman of the Chinese Nuclear Society. “A growing proportion of key nuclear power equipment and materials are produced domestically, with Hualong-1 and CAP1400 representing China’s most advanced self-developed 3rd-generation nuclear power technology,” he added. “SPIC will participate in the construction of Turkish NPPs and adopt CAP1400 technology to four nuclear power units, which means that as China’s advanced nuclear power technology is growing globally, it will further benefit Turkey’s energy construction,” said Hao Hongsheng, General Manager of the SPIC Nuclear Energy Department. The State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation developed CAP1400 with independent intellectual property rights. It is an advanced third-generation nuclear power technology with a power generation capacity of 1.5GW. Each nuclear power unit can generate 11.4 TWh per year. The annual power generation of a nuclear power base, which contains eight CAP1400 nuclear power units, is almost equivalent to the Three Gorges hydropower station. Although nuclear power is efficient and environmentally friendly, there is still public concern about its safety due to a lack of understanding. In order to dispel public doubt, the Ahaber Channel media team made an in-depth visit to the nuclear power plant to learn the operating principles of China’s CAP1400 technology, and inspected how nuclear safety was effectively guaranteed. As the latest generation of nuclear reactors in operation, CAP1400 has much higher requirements for production safety and economy. It adopts a passive system when under power outage conditions. Reactors can automatically ensure safety without manual intervention in the 72 hours after an accident. At the same time, CAP1400 applies passive safety systems to increase the power station’s ability against extreme natural disasters, such as earthquakes and external flooding. The overall power station and main equipment have a 60-year lifespan. Moreover, it is easier to operate and maintain than past generations. In 2016, China’s National Development and Reform Commission and National Energy Administration jointly released the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan” for Power Development, which proposed that China’s nuclear power operation and installed capacity will reach 88GW by 2020. In the same year, China-Turkey nuclear power cooperation also embraced new opportunities. As Turkey officially announced the cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear energy with China, the China-Turkey nuclear energy cooperation agreement formally entered into force. In the past three years, China’s nuclear power technology has continuously developed, and these technologies and safety concepts will also enter into Turkey through cooperation. As Hao said, China’s participation in the construction of Turkish nuclear power plants will further meet Turkey’s demands for clean energy, and the cooperation between energy companies of the two countries will also benefit local people in terms of employment and taxation.  Source: People's Daily Online Author: Guo Yawen Date:December 18, 2019

BRUSSELS, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- Climate change, one of the foremost global challenges of our times, has been a major highlight of China-European Union (EU) cooperation, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here on Monday. The new EU leadership has identified climate change as a top priority, which can be seen in the adoption by the European Commission last week of an ambitious plan to achieve climate neutrality, Wang said at an event hosted by the European Policy Center, a think tank. China will host the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity next year. "We will take this opportunity to advance global ecological progress and build a shared future for all life on earth with all parties," Wang said. He said that China and the EU need to step up coordination and cooperation in this area to enhance mutual understanding and promote the full and effective implementation of the Paris Agreement. "Let us work together to realize low-carbon and sustainable development and leave a world of clear rivers, green mountains and blue skies to our future generations," Wang added. Source: Xinhua Date: Dec 17, 2019