Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) will promote collaboration in the area of closing the carbon cycle to better tackle the challenge of climate change, according to a video-conference held on May 26 by the two organizations.

CAS and CEA signed a new framework agreement for cooperation last November in Beijing, witnessed by Chinese President XI Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron. Both sides are committed to boosting collaboration on physical sciences, material sciences, life sciences, nanotechnology and information technology between China and France. They also specifically planed to focus part of their cooperation on the scientific and technology R&D to develop resilient low-carbon energy systems. According to the agreement, collaboration will be carried out through symposia on key areas, joint research projects, talent exchange and cultivation. 

Mutual interest in limiting global warming under climate change has brought the two organizations together in this symposium. Both China and France are strongly committed within the 2015 Paris Agreement to mitigating global climate change, in particular, to developing low carbon economy and technologies to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. 

“In order to achieve the goal of limiting global warming significantly by below 2°C, energy transitions programs should be ambitious and that adaptation and mitigation will require combined and cooperative efforts in terms of research and development,” said Mr. Patrick Landais, high-commissioner of CEA. 

“One of the best approaches to address the issue is to capture and convert CO₂ into useful products, aiming at targeting carbon neutrality with a positive environmental and societal impact,” said Prof. ZHANG Yaping, Vice-President of CAS. 

During this seminar, participants from the two sides shared R&D progress on closing the carbon cycle and discussed ongoing and potential collaborations. 

Prof. LI Yin, Director General of the Bureau of International Cooperation, CAS, suggested at the meeting the two sides could jointly support research projects under the CAS-CEA cooperation framework and he welcomed French scientists to visit CAS institutions with the support of President’s International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI). 

Mr. SUN Yuming, the Chinese Minister Counselor for scientific cooperation in Paris, believed that this meeting would effectively promote the exchange and mutual learning of research on Carbon Cycle between CAS and CEA, the two national teams of China and France, and would also generate ideas on how to strengthen research cooperation at the next stage. 

The video-conference “therefore aims to allow each organization to provide a general overview of their respective program on the closing of the carbon cycle,” said Christophe Poinssot, nuclear Counsellor and CEA representative in China. It will help scientific leaders from CEA and CAS to select a limited number of scientific topics to initiate the cooperation, he said. 

The topics will be further explored during a new planned seminar scheduled in June, according to Christophe Poinssot. “This second step will aim to define a joint roadmap between CAS and CEA to initiate an effective and fruitful cooperation,” he said. 

The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) is a key player in research, development and innovation in defense and security, low carbon energies (nuclear and renewable energies), technological research for industry and fundamental research in physical sciences and life sciences.