The West Kowloon Station in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has added trains to cope with the growing travel demand during the holiday season of Christmas and New Year's Day.
By 08:00 on Wednesday morning, the West Kowloon Station experienced a notable surge in passengers in the waiting hall, with long queues at each ticket checkpoint.
The station has launched round-trip train services for travelers to and from popular destinations such as Zhangjiajie in central China's Hunan Province and Chaozhou and Shantou cities in south China's Guangdong Province.
"We already had several tour groups set up over a month ago. Our list of travelers kept growing before departure," said Cheng In-fai, a tour group leader.
"It takes about 40 minutes from Hong Kong to Guangzhou. It's quite convenient," said Mrs. Chan, a traveler from Hong Kong.
Currently, high-speed trains from Hong Kong can directly reach 80 stations in the mainland, passing through 11 provinces, one autonomous region, and four municipalities.
To facilitate travelers, the border inspection station at the West Kowloon Station has increased personnel and opened all inspection channels.
From 06:30 on Wednesday to 11:00 on Thursday, the station handled more than 127,000 inbound and outbound passengers, with over 86,000 inbound passengers, and among them inbound Hong Kong and Macao travelers accounted for 67.4 percent.
Starting on January 5, 2025, the Shenzhen North Railway Station in Guangdong Province will launch an additional 14 multiple unit trains departing from and terminating at the station.
These trains will connect West Kowloon, Shanwei, Chaozhou and Shantou in Guangdong, Huangshan North in east China's Anhui Province, Shanghai, and Zhangjiagang City in Jiangsu Province.
Kowloon station in HK add trains for holiday rush
World Energy Council Secretary General Angela Wilkinson has called for greater cooperation, as geopolitical tensions add uncertainty to the market, and praised China's efforts in prompting global energy resilience.
Speaking to China Global Television Network, she said she thinks although the current situation feels very acute, it is not as severe as it would have been maybe 20 years ago in terms of energy, because energy supply is becoming more diversified.
She emphasized that China's cooperation with other countries has helped strengthen energy security and overall sustainability.
"We've always talked about for 20 years the need to balance security, affordability and sustainability, The triangle or what we call the trilemma, right? And what we know now is that those trade-offs are real and they're getting sharper and they're shifting. So when we've come through two decades where people have really wanted to frame energy policy in terms of climate. And the need for clean and green power. But now we're talking about the need to have rebalancing world energy leadership, so China's cooperation with many other countries changes how those countries can balance security, affordability and sustainability," she said.
Wilkinson highlighted China's efforts to diversify its energy imports and build a new power system at remarkable speed and scale. She said China is not only managing its own system security but also considering how it can contribute to global stability.
"China has diversified the imports that it's make. It's built a new power system at speed and scale. And I think China manages the whole system security and it's looking at how does it contribute to the security of the world so that it can continue to grow and flourish. You can't grow and flourish in a world of war," she said.
Wilkinson used a vivid analogy to explain whether the current crisis would accelerate the transition to renewables or reinforce reliance on coal.
"New power systems and the existing energy system is the mosquito and the elephant. The current capacity of renewables is like the mosquito. The existing system is like the elephant, but the mosquito relies on the elephant for its blood. And it's going to for a long time. These are codependent systems. As the new power systems scale across the world, then we will see naturally a fall off or a shift in supplies," she said.
Wilkinson also expressed her concern over humanity.
She said that as an entire species, people have forgotten just how dependent they are on energy. And it is not just about technology or money or an industry or a commodity, but actually the modern foundation of all societies.
World Energy Council chief highlights China’s role in global energy resilience
