On March 23 at 9pm Beijing time and 1pm UK time, the online symposium “Interdependencies of SDGs - examining carbon systems” was unveiled at Strathclyde University and Peking University. Experts and scholars from the two universities, as well as about 130 audience focused on innovative technology to meet global climate challenges and discussed the role of university partnership in advancing sustainable development goals by the United Nations and in contributing to solve the problems bought by climate change.

The symposium is one of the series symposiums “Accelerating progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals in the post-COVID era: the contribution of Universities”, initiated by Strathclyde Centre for Sustainable Development.

In the symposium, assistant professor Hancheng Dai in the College of Environmental Science and Engineering at Peking University introduced the vast impact of climate change and explored the chances and risks faced by human society in the areas of health, economy and energy system. After that, Professor Xinrong Zhang in the College of Engineering shared his research team’s recent discovery in decarbonized energy conversion and introduced the utilization technology of CO₂ in the heating and cooling process and its function in improving air quality.

Andrew Goudie, director of the center, commented, “Peking University has set a role model to make contributions to the United Nations sustainable development goals. It demonstrates the importance and impact that higher education and research can make for achieving these global goals.”

“We are honored to jointly hold the sustainable development lectures in the post-Covid era. The sustainable development requires collaboration among different research institutes and disciplines. Via online academic exchanges, we look forward to the full embracement of new and advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence, energy and environment, carbon emission for progressing toward sustainable development,” said Jie Song, associate dean of the College of Engineering, Peking University.