Human social activities have had a profound impact on the earth's environment, and the homeland we depend on for survival is facing severe challenges. April 22, 2023 is the 54th Earth Day. The theme is "Earth4All", reminding us once again to cherish and protect our common earth home. In recent years, climate risks have been increasing. Addressing climate change is the top priority of our current work. Low-carbon transformation is a necessary move to slow down climate change and protect the earth. Earth Day is not just today. For our common home, for future generations, and for a better and sustainable world, we need to realize the importance of low-carbon transformation, take active actions, care for the "Earth of all living beings", and promote our society Towards a more environmentally friendly, low-carbon future.

On the occasion of the 54th Earth Day, the China Energy Modeling Forum (CEMF) launched the third salon, focusing on energy hotspot issues, to discuss "low-carbon transformation of resource-based regions".

Resource-based areas refer to special types of areas developed on the basis of local rich natural resources. These regions rely on the mining, processing and utilization of resources as the economic pillar, and provide resource support for the economic development of other regions, which play a vital role in ensuring national energy security and promoting the sustainable and healthy development of the national economy. However, in the context of intensifying climate change, resource-based regions urgently need to get rid of their high dependence on fossil energy and explore new economic growth models. The low-carbon transformation of resource-based regions is not only related to the realization of climate goals, but also related to the realization of environmental governance, green growth and common prosperity.

This issue of the CEMF Salon invited Ren Lijun, Associate Professor at the School of Economics and Management, Shanxi University, and Vice Director of the Green Development Research Center, Shanxi University; Tian Zhiyu, Deputy Researcher at the Energy Research Institute, National Development and Reform Commission, and Executive Director of the Center for Energy Sustainable Development; Gu Baihe, Deputy Researcher at the Institute of Science and Technology Strategy Consultation, Chinese Academy of Sciences; and Zhao Gongmin, Dean of the School of Economics and Management, North University of China, to engage in an in-depth dialogue on various topics, including how Shanxi can actively and steadily achieve its "dual carbon" goals, effectively respond to the challenges and opportunities of transformation, explore the optimal dual carbon path and common prosperity path with Shanxi characteristics.

Wonderful views of the salon

When answering the host's question about how Shanxi, as a typical resource-based region, can actively and steadily realize the goal of "dual carbon", Zhao Gongmin said that the realization of carbon neutrality in carbon peak should be a profound and systematic social revolution, which may involve When it comes to energy transformation, industrial transformation, social and people's livelihood and many other issues, it is necessary to increase resource efficiency and reduce carbon, reduce energy structure carbon, ecosystem carbon sequestration, geological space carbon storage, and market mechanisms to melt carbon "five carbons simultaneously". From the point of view of concepts and goals, the "dual carbon" goal should change the driving mechanism and model selection for the transformation of resource-based regions like Shanxi; at the level of resources and industries, it is necessary to orderly and smoothly transform the fossil energy industry and related industries, and try to avoid The regional economy and employment will have a major impact. In addition, artificial intelligence and digitalization represented by chatGPT also play a very important role in the future high-quality development and transformation of resource-based economic regions.

Regarding the difficulties faced by Shanxi in the process of promoting the realization of the dual-carbon goals, Tian Zhiyu pointed out that the difficulties faced by Shanxi are superimposed. At present, the cost of coal development is getting higher and higher, and the requirements for ecological environment protection are also increasing. On this basis, carbon constraints are superimposed. At the same time, Shanxi is facing the challenges of energy transformation, as well as industrial transformation and infrastructure transformation such as power grids. The construction of Shanxi's existing energy, industry, and infrastructure systems has taken a long time, and the transformation cannot be completed overnight. Tian Zhiyu mentioned that if Shanxi wants to get rid of its dependence on resource-based economy, it must first accelerate the development of non-coal emerging industries and cultivate new economic growth points. Optimize the combination of energy and renewable energy to improve the development and utilization of renewable energy. In addition, new zero-carbon and negative-carbon technologies (such as CCUS and hydrogen energy, etc.) also have some room for development in Shanxi, but there is still room for improvement in terms of technological maturity, economy, industry and infrastructure implementation. Shanxi should strengthen this Research and development and demonstration of technologies in various fields, and explore more application scenarios in combination with reality. Increasing technological and industrial transformation will not only benefit Shanxi's high-quality transformation and upgrading, but also open up a broader market space and form new momentum for green, low-carbon and sustainable development.