When the 5th China (Taiyuan) International Energy Industry Expo and 2014 low-carbon development summit started, on Sept 16, at the China Taiyuan Coal Transaction Center, in the city of Taiyuan, North China’s Shanxi province, Wang Rulin, the Shanxi provincial Party secretary, was on hand to open the event, and Li Xiaopeng, Shanxi governor, addressing the gathering of more than 600 people, including guests from the US, UK, Germany, Russia and Hong Kong, as well as several dozen experts and scholars from Chinese institutes of higher learning and scientific research institutes.
Li discussed green, low-carbon energy development, especially with coal, and the significance of sustainable energy development for energy safety and economic and social development and the current situation, challenges, and opportunities in low-carbon development for coal. He covered the history of low-carbon development and Shanxi’s ideas on a coal revolution.
Taking part in the summit were Lawrence Bloom, former Chairman of the UN Environmental Program, Eric Maskin, winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics, Liu Yanhua, a counselor, of the State Council and the former deputy head of the Ministry of Science and Techology and Fei Weiyang, former vice-science and technology minister and member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. They spoke about low-carbon development, the green revolution, the energy frontier, and industrial innovation.
Organizers of the event were the Shanxi government, China’s Commerce and Science and Technology ministries, and the National Energy Administration. This was its fifth session where the focus was on green energy and low-carbon development, and it came with an online exhibition and offline forum and attracted 230 Fortune 500 companies, major Chinese State-owned companies and prominent businesses, universities, investment organizations and research institutes.
The accompanying low-carbon summit is an important part of the expo and is used as a platform for international low-carbon development cooperation.
