On mission in Suzhou, China

This week, several of our team were on mission in Suzhou City, China, for the International Forum on Energy Transitions, jointly hosted by the Government of China and IRENA, the International Renewable Energy Agency. This three-day event provided a platform for government officials, scientists, experts and scholars, as well as representatives from the energy industry and business community, to facilitate in-depth discussions on energy transition around the world.

Among the speakers during the plenary sessions was the Climate Parliament's very own Nicholas Dunlop, Secretary-General, who gave an overview of the Climate Parliament's work in national legislatures around the world and how our MPs are building national capacity for the shift to clean, sustainable energy, with a special focus on regional interconnections and long-distance energy trading. Other topics covered during the event included renewable energy and power transition, demand side management and energy transition, the energy internet, fossil energy transformation path and policy, prospects for G20 cooperation in renewable energy, financial innovation and energy transition.

The roundtable sessions and keynote speeches resulted in a broad range of shared experiences, trend-analyses within energy technology, energy policy and models, and not least, interesting discussions of the challenges and opportunities regarding the forthcoming Chinese energy revolution presented by the president of the Republic of China, Xi Jinping back in 2014.

At the conclusion of the event, the assembled delegates issues a Joint Declaration, calling upon governments to accelerate the uptake of clean energy, do more to reduce fossil fuel consumption, and enhance internation cooperation in the field of renewables and energy trading. You can read the full declaration here.