UK to help China tackle climate change, energy security

The UK and China have signed a strategic alliance treaty aimed at jointly tackling various issues pertaining to climate change as well as ensuring energy security, Environmental Management Magazine reported. The agreement joins similar ongoing projects between the UK and 12 other countries – including Belgium, South Korea and 10 other developing nations – and focuses on developing climate and energy modeling software. According to the report, the deal will see British experts assist Chinese experts from the Beijing's Energy Research Institute (ERI) in adapting the UK government's 2050 Pathways Analysis Calculator (PAC) to China's needs. PAC is an online tool, originally developed by David Mackay, chief scientific at the British Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). It allows individuals and organizations to explore energy-related risks and trade-offs of different actions into the future especially when it comes to the options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. "The 2050 Calculator is a ground-breaking tool to help countries better plan their future energy strategy, in a transparent and evidence-based way. We welcome the work of our Chinese colleagues," UK Energy Secretary Ed Davey was quoted by the magazine as saying. The UK and China also agreed to hold a high-level conference in Beijing in one year's time, to discuss the project's findings, progress and future endeavors. "We are collaborating with China and other countries in building a wider base for this innovative and practical analysis, and I would like to invite other interested countries to join us in enriching this collaboration further," DECC's Director Ravi Gurumurthy said. The UK DECC's Carbon Plan, published in late 2011, used PAC to illustrate three 2050 futures that show some of the plausible routes towards meeting the UK’s carbon reduction target. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter