The "Berlin Declaration" emphasises the importance of basic research and international cooperation to achieve carbon neutrality, and sets out specific measures to reduce CO₂ emissions.
Both academies advocate developing effective measures to reduce carbon emissions in all relevant sectors, including energy, industry, transport, buildings, as well as agriculture and forestry. They identify pivotal factors such as adequate political and socio-economic framework conditions at the national and global level. The Leopoldina and CAS call for strategies including the development of carbon measuring and monitoring techniques, as well as a global CO₂ pricing mechanism, and a global carbon market. To accelerate the decarbonisation of all sectors, it is important to promote and further develop technologies for the use of renewable energies and for circular carbon management. Such technologies include carbon capture and storage (CCS), and carbon capture and utilisation (CCU). The Berlin Declaration also stresses the importance of close ties between basic and applied research. Furthermore, the Leopoldina and CAS use the declaration to reaffirm their commitment to close cooperation and the pooling of their expertise in order to build bridges between science and society, and to promote young researchers and international scientific partnerships between China and Germany.
The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the Chinese Academy of Sciences launched the "Science for Future" initiative in 2018 with the aim of highlighting the importance of basic research to society. The "On the Path to Carbon Neutrality" conference is the second conference in this series. At the inaugural conference in 2018, both academies signed the "Beijing Declaration on Basic Science".
Further Reading
- German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (29.10.2024): Leopoldina and Chinese Academy of Sciences publish joint Berlin Declaration
