As the need to ensure energy security, address climate change, and promote common development becomes increasingly urgent, panelists at the Global South Power Partnership Development Forum — co-initiated by China Southern Power Grid (CSG) and power utility partners across Asia, Africa and Latin America — said that Global South countries are an important force in promoting the global energy transition and sustainable development.
Themed "Empowering the Global South and Creating a Shared Energy Future", the forum — held on Friday — brought together representatives of government departments, energy and power companies, international organizations, industry associations, financial institutions, and universities from over 20 countries and regions.
CSG Chairman Qian Chaoyang said the company is ready to partner with all parties to forge a new landscape of power cooperation across the Global South, featuring safety and universal access, green and low-carbon development, digital and smart innovation, as well as openness and shared benefits.
“We stand ready to uphold our founding partnership spirit together with government authorities and power utilities from Global South countries. We will deepen pragmatic cooperation; establish regular communication and dialogue mechanisms; advance project coordination, capacity building, technical exchanges and joint research; as well as launch more benchmark power cooperation projects,” said Wei Xiaowei, director-general of the Department of International Cooperation at National Energy Administration of China.
“The National Energy Administration of China will keep supporting Chinese power enterprises to deepen pragmatic cooperation with Global South partners,” Wei said via a prerecorded video speech at the forum.
Tse Chin-wan, secretary for environment and ecology of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, said that clean industry is the cornerstone for sustainable high-quality development.
“Less than 20 percent of our electricity generation is based on coal, and about 25 percent is nuclear energy from the Chinese mainland. Our carbon emissions have decreased 27 percent compared to the 2014 peak level,” Tse said in his opening remarks at the forum.
The environment minister added that Hong Kong is a leader in green technologies and financial services and can inspire innovative practices and partnerships for a sustainable future.
CSG and nearly 40 utility enterprises from the Global South countries rolled out a cooperation and development initiative at the forum, proposing to build power infrastructure jointly, advance low-carbon technology adoption, boost green investment collaboration, share power expertise and achievements to develop a safe, reliable, green, low-carbon, flexible and smart power systems, and shape a sustainable energy future.
“The Global South is not simply participating, it is helping to shape the world energy transition, and this is why we need more voices from the Global South in the global energy conversations, more leadership on emerging economies, and more opportunities for countries and companies to learn directly from each other,” said Angela Wilkinson, secretary general and CEO of World Energy Council.
Akhomdeth Vongsay, assistant minister of Industry and Commerce of Laos and executive chairman of Electricite du Laos, called for further collaboration in integrating the infrastructure and markets to facilitate a sustainable clean energy transition, and said that efficiency, cost reduction, transparency, investment and climate action would be among the benefits of having a common electricity market.
Konstantin Papailiou, president of CIGRE — a collaborative global community committed to the creation and sharing of power system expertise — said that energy transition for the Global South countries is urgent, and requires the use of renewable sources for rapid electrification to achieve shared prosperity and combat climate change.
Frank Feng contributed to this story
Contact the writer at oswald@chinadailyhk.com
