BRI members seek cooperation on renewable energy

Countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative will enhance cooperation with China on renewable energy technology, ministers said.

Chimed Khurelbaatar, Mongolia's minister of economy and development, told a Belt and Road subforum of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2023 on Tuesday that Mongolia is very willing to develop renewable energy, including wind and solar.

He said the country has the capacity and is willing to work with partners.

The Boao Forum for Asia runs from Tuesday to Friday in Boao, a coastal town in Hainan province, which this year is themed "An Uncertain World: Solidarity and Cooperation for Development amid Challenges".

"Mongolia is a mining country. So we should pay more attention to our environmental issues," Khurelbaatar said.

The country plans to plant 1 billion trees by 2030 to address desertification, he added.

Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary, minister for planning, development and special initiatives of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, told the forum that China has technologies that can be leveraged by the BRI countries.

He said Pakistan is shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and that will be an important window in which the country will be relying heavily on the technology and investment from China to help them move forward.

Pakistan along with other countries is facing the challenge of water and food security.

"My country has faced climate change with less than 1 percent global carbon emissions. We had the worst climate disaster last year. So we are attending several green economy initiatives, some of which are under the BRI, to help withstand a lot of disasters," he said.

China will deepen cooperation on clean energy by promoting low-carbon international energy cooperation, especially on technology and equipment, according to a guideline promoting the green development of the Belt and Road released by the National Development and Reform Commission last March.

The guideline said that cooperation should focus on joint research and exchange training on high-efficiency and low-cost renewable energy power generation, energy storage and carbon dioxide capture, utilization and storage.

It encourages Chinese solar and wind power companies and other related enterprises to go global in the wake of the nation's pledge not to start any new overseas coal power projects.

The guideline calls for the existing overseas enterprises that use coal to work in a clean and efficient way by upgrading energy-saving and environmental protection facilities.