China is driving the green energy revolution with technological advancements, innovations and forward-thinking policies and has made valuable contributions to the global fight against climate change, said Diana Urge-Vorsatz, vice-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at a conference in north China's Hebei Province on Saturday.
The Hungarian scientist, also a professor of the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy at the Central European University (CEU), sat down with the China Global Television Network (CGTN) to discuss China's green-building technologies on the sidelines of the 2025 China International Green, Smart, and Healthy Building Conference. At the conference, China unveiled a new high-tech modular smart home. The "space house" is designed to withstand super typhoons and major earthquakes, while offering a controlled, self-sufficient living environment powered by renewable energy.
Diana Urge-Vorsatz said the design could transform the way people live in the face of environmental challenges and highly commented on China's leading role in climate action.
"Highly energy efficient buildings reduce the energy used for heating and cooling, which is among the largest energy users of the world. For example, in Europe, half of all final energy use is for heating. Now, such buildings and such houses, as shown here during this conference, can reduce that energy use by at least to 1/5 or even potentially to one tenth. Well, China has been leading the world in many areas related to climate change action. In particular, without China, we would not be where we are now with regard to reducing emissions, at least compared to a baseline," Diana Urge-Vorsatz said.
The climate change expert also lauded China's efforts to develop green energy.
"So we are celebrating this year the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement. Within just this one decade, we took the world off the worst climate scenarios. Today we no longer expect such a big rise. At worst, it could be something between two and a half and three and a half degrees. Much of this can be thanked to the revolution in photovoltaic energy, wind energy, in electric vehicles and batteries. And many of these efforts actually originated from China. And China has been driving the industrial revolution in this area," she said.
Diana Urge-Vorsatz said she believes China's green building technologies will help the Global South to deal with the challenges in climate adaptation and provide them with technology access.
"This is extremely important because in the Global South there is still a lot of new housing that needs to be developed and shelter to be provided for many, many more people, especially in cities, because many of these countries are rapidly urbanizing, so producing prototypes that are not only energy efficient, so meaning virtually you don't have energy bills, but also which are resilient, so protect people against the heat waves," she said.
China driving green energy revolution: climate change expert
China driving green energy revolution: climate change expert
