|
China, EU leading 3rd Industrial Revolution
LONDON—China and the European
Union (EU) are leading a Third Industrial Revolution, paving the way to
a sustainable economic era in the 21st century, a world renowned expert
said here Tuesday.
“There are three essential pillars of the Third Industrial Revolution
which must be simultaneously developed and fully integrated for any one
of these components to fully realized its potential and for the new
economic paradigm to become operational: renewable energy, storage
technology, and smart power grids,” Jereny Rifkin, adviser to EU and
U.S. governments and Fortune 500 companies, said at the CHINA NOW
Sustainability Conference held here.
Looking to the future, every government will need to explore new energy
paths and establish new economic models with the goal of achieving as
close to zero carbon emissions as possible, said Rifkin who is the
author of 17 books on environmental, energy and economic related issues.
The EU has begun the journey toward a Third Industrial Revolution by
making a binding commitment that 20 percent of all EU energy be
generated by renewable sources of energy of 2020 while China pledged in
its 11th Five-Year Plan to have renewable energy rise to 15 percent in
energy consumption by 2020.
The EU and China are both engaged in developing technologies to store
intermittent forms of renewable energy and creating intelligent utility
networks to allow distributed forms of renewable energy, he said.
For the EU and China to lead, “cooperative partnership between China and
the EU is important”, Rifkin said.
Sustainability and climate change in particular are key issues across
the globe and a prominent topic of discussion at the conference, jointly
hosted by CHINA NOW, which is organizing Britain’s largest ever festival
of Chinese culture, and international legal practice Norton Rose LLP.
The conference is one of CHINA NOW’s more than 800 events across Britain
to celebrate China as a vibrant, dynamic and fast evolving nation.
—Daily Mail, People’s Daily news exchange item |
