Thematic Event of GEIDCO Kicked Off at COP25

GEI offers a roadmap to meet NDCs to Climate Change

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“Global Energy Interconnection (GEI) provides a technically advanced, cost-effective, viable and scalable solution to global climate governance, playing a key role in advancing the implementation of the Paris Agreement and winning the race against climate change”, said Chairman Liu Zhenya of Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization (GEIDCO) at the thematic event of GEIDCO at COP25 in Madrid, Spain on December 9, 2019.

This event was held by GEIDCO, partnering with UNFCCC Secretariat.GEIDCO released the Research Report on Global Energy Interconnection for Addressing Climate Change, Research Report on Global Electricity-Carbon Market and Report Series for Research and Outlook on Global and Six Continental Energy Interconnection, providing a package solution for building GEI and promoting the coordinated and sustainable development of energy, economy, society, climate and environment.

At the event, GEIDCO signed cooperative agreements with UNFCCC Secretariat and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) respectively. They will work together to deepen cooperation on research and projects, take positive measures to support countries in delivering their nationally determined contributions (NDCs), and promote the establishment of a climate-resilient energy system.

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A clean, electrified and interconnected global emission reduction plan is launched

The Research Report on Global Energy Interconnection for Addressing Climate Change released on December 9 was jointly prepared by GEIDCO, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and WMO.

Based on authoritative international models and databases, the report quantitatively simulates the emission reduction scenarios, technical solutions and actions of various continents for GEI to achieve 2℃ and 1.5℃ targets, and systematically evaluates GEI’s comprehensive benefits in economy, society, climate, environment and health. The report aims to provide countries with action guidelines and institutional safeguards to address climate change.

This report is a follow-up to GEIDCO’s GEI Action Plan to Promote the Implementation of Paris Agreement, which was launched at COP24 last year.

GEIDCO’s report suggests that the massive exploitation and utilization of fossil fuels is the root cause of climate change. From 1970 to 2018, fossil fuels caused 1.1 trillion tons of CO2 emissions, accounting for more than 70% of total greenhouse gas emissions. The fundamental way to address climate change is to accelerate clean development and realize the “de-carbonization” of the energy system.

Liu Zhenya stressed that GEI will promote key carbon emission reduction actions such as clean replacement, electricity replacement, connectivity and energy efficiency improvement, providing important tools for countries to achieve more ambitious emission reduction commitments.

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Liu Zhenya noted that power grid interconnection can comprehensively takes advantage of differences in resources, seasons, time zones and power prices among countries and regions to significantly improve the investment efficiency of clean energy, so that economic competitiveness will become the endogenous power to accelerate carbon emission reduction

According to the data in the report, by 2050, the cumulative investments in the energy system under the GEI 2℃ scenario and under the GEI 1.5℃ scenario will be USD 78 trillion and USD 92 trillion respectively, lower than under other global mainstream scenarios. This will effectively reduce the cost of global emission reduction, protect the right to development of all countries, and achieve economic development and carbon emission reduction at the same time.

“It is estimated that GEI can get a comprehensive benefit of USD 9 for every USD 1 invested between 2020 and 2050, which has a significant advantage”, said Liu Zhenya.

At the thematic event, GEIDCO also released the Research Report on Global Electricity-Carbon Market. With coordinated energy and climate governance as the research direction, this report put forward the concept of global electricity-carbon market, which aims at promoting the deep integration and coordinated development of electricity market and carbon market, and accelerating energy transition and carbon emission reduction of all countries through a new market system and price-guiding mechanism, thus to achieve the clean and low-carbon sustainable development goals.

Estimations suggest that by 2050, the global intercontinental power trading volume will amount to 800TWh; the cross-region power flow will be 660GW; clean energy will account for 86% in primary energy; the cumulative global CO2 emissions will be kept under 510 billion tons; and the discharge of sulfur dioxide, nitric oxide and PM2.5 will drop by 86%, 98% and 93% respectively.

“1+6” Report Series outlines a blueprint for GEI development

At the thematic event, the Report Series for Research and Outlook on Global and Six Continental Energy Interconnection was published. It consists of one main report, Research and Outlook on Global Energy Interconnection, and six continental reports, Research and Outlook on Asian, European, African, North American, Central and South American and Oceanian Energy Interconnection.

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“1+6” Report Series comprehensively studies the vision, path and major issues of GEI development, analyzes the development trend of energy and power in the world and on various continents, carries out a top-level design for the global energy and power transition and clean and low-carbon development, and draws a blueprint for the global and continental energy interconnection. The main report focuses on the “Nine Horizontal and Nine Vertical” backbone grids and other overall solutions. The continental reports focus on the development of clean energy bases and grid interconnection plans for each continent.

The Report Series points out that on the basis of domestic and cross-border power grid interconnection, further intercontinental interconnection needs to be strengthend via building “Nine Horizontal and Nine Vertical” GEI backbone grids, which will enable extensive interconnection of large clean energy bases with load centers, thus achieving global allocation of clean energy and large-scale cross-time zone, cross-season mutual support.

According to the report, between now and 2050, the total investment in GEI power source and power grid at all voltage levels will be about USD 34 trillion; the average power generation costs will be reduced by 40%; and more than 300 million jobs will be created.

It is reported that since 2016, GEIDCO has released more than 30 important research results on the basis of multi-level, cross-field and global comprehensive research, forming the GEI research results system composed of theory, strategy, planning, technology and standards.

The Report Series is the core component of the research results system, which fills the gap in related research fields at home and abroad and will provide decision-making reference for GEI and energy interconnection in all continents, key regions and countries.