Solar power could stop China’s Belt and Road Initiative from unleashing huge carbon emissions

Kathryn Grace Logan; Shi Chen; Xi Lu

Solar power could stop China’s Belt and Road Initiative from unleashing huge carbon emissions

Kathryn Grace Logan, Shi Chen, Xi Lu

Biological Sciences

Tsinghua University

Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article

Abstract

China has invested US$90 billion in the countries involved in its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) since 2013. The BRI involves developing infrastructure in 126 partner countries to boost trade within a region stretching from Indonesia to Western Europe via the Middle East and East Africa, inspired by the historical Silk Road.

While this economic development could help raise living standards in participating countries, it could also come with a huge potential increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. But our research demonstrates the region has huge potential for generating solar power. This could decouple economic growth from increasing carbon emissions.

Original language	English
Specialist publication	The Conversation
Publisher	The Conversation UK
Publication status	Published - 3 Oct 2019

Bibliographical note

Kathryn G Logan received funding from the Natural Environment Research Council through the UK Energy Research Centre's ADVENT project. Funding was also received from the School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, the Santander Mobility Award and the Energy Technology Partnership Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Grant.

Shi Chen has received funding from the National Key R&D Program (2016YFC0208901), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71690244 and 71722003) and Volvo Group in a research project of the Research Center for Green Economy and Sustainable Development, Tsinghua University, and a grant from the Harvard Global Institute to the Harvard-China Project titled “China 2030/2050: Energy and Environmental Challenges for the Future”.

Xi Lu is a tenured associate professor at Tsinghua University. He received the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars in 2017.

Keywords

Solar power
China
Solar
Infrastructure
Asia
Decarbonisation
One Belt One Road
Belt and Road Initiative
China Belt Road Initiative
Global perspectives

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

https://theconversation.com/solar-power-could-stop-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-from-unleashing-huge-carbon-emissions-120919Licence: CC BY-ND

Cite this

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KW - China

KW - Solar

KW - Infrastructure

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KW - Decarbonisation

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KW - Global perspectives

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Solar power could stop China’s Belt and Road Initiative from unleashing huge carbon emissions

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

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Cite this