Tsinghua and Harvard promote low carbon development

More than 100 prestigious scholars, entrepreneurs and government officials from home and abroad were invited to Tsinghua University to conduct an in-depth discussion on promoting low carbon development from June 2nd to June 3rd.

Professor Su Jun from the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua hosted the opening ceremony and delivered the welcoming speech.

This third Harvard-Tsinghua Workshop on Low Carbon Development and Public Policy was jointly held by Tsinghua’s Center for Science, Technology and Education Policy from the School of Public Policy and Management, and Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government.

Since 2014 the two leading world universities have jointly held the event.

Based on their research achievements, Tsinghua’s Center for Science, Technology and Education Policy (CSTEP) and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard (HKS) have successfully applied major international cooperation projects, and in 2015 published several joint academic papers in leading international journals, including Nature, Energy, and Energy Policy.

At the same time, CSTEP and HKS have increased the exchange of talent, with seven Ph.D. students from CSTEP visiting HKS as research fellows, and one postdoc from CSTEP doing research at HKS.

Daniel Schrag, Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering at Harvard University, outlined the commitment China and the United States are making to the reduction of carbon emission and the challenge faced.

He also addressed the importance to bilateral relations of combating climate change. "Tsinghua and Harvard in the future need to further strengthen cooperation in carbon emission reduction."

Last year Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard’s first-ever female president, delivered a speech at Tsinghua, talking about “the special role universities like ours play in addressing climate change”.

She also said in her speech that Harvard’s partnerships with Tsinghua and other Chinese institutions spanned nearly every department across all of its 13 schools, achieving positive results.

During the conference, Venkatesh (Venky) Narayanamurti, the Benjamin Peirce Professor of Technology and Public Policy and a Professor of Physics at Harvard, reviewed the deepening communication and cooperation between Harvard and Tsinghua over the past 30 years, and suggested that “cooperation between Harvard and Tsinghua will reach new heights.”

(From Office of Global Communications and Outreach)