Paulo Jorge Nascimento：The importance of achieving both carbon peak and neutrality as the necessary steps

I would first like to thank you for the kind invitation and the opportunity to address you with this short keynote speech for the Belt and Road Economic & Environmental Cooperation Forum, to whichunfortunatelyI’m not able to attend in person.

Much will hereby be said about the importance of achievingbothcarbon peak and neutrality as the necessary steps, not only to address the climate emergency, but also to ensure a successful and balanced energy transition, that will allow us to keep healthy economic growth; and in so doing, continuing to provide better living standards to all our citizens and the future generations.

Paulo Jorge Nascimento, Portuguese Ambassador to China

Addressing carbon neutrality remains very high on both our national and EU-level agendas – as has been the case since the nineties, where the first major steps to addressing this need materialized.

-Just this weekend, as you may be aware, the European Institutions agreed on a major overhaul of the so-calledFit for 55 Package, that aims to securely achieve a 55% haircut of carbon emissions from 1990 levels by 2030.

As the first country in the world to pledge not only to achieve carbon emission reductions but to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 at the COP 2016 in Marrakesh, Portugal is highly committed to ensure a sharp increase of renewable inputs into both our energy production and consumption mix.

-The push for the energy transition is of extreme importance,not only to make the most of the new green economy and the jobs it will create, but also achieve the commitments we take very seriously on such benchmarks as the EU Green Deal or the 2030 Agenda, but as well as to accrue greater resilience against price volatility and achieve greater energy security.

-It also calls for sourcing 80% of energy consumption needs from renewable sources, with wind and solareachwith a potential 9GW of installed capacity.

-On solar energy, we’ve been streamliningauction energy batches and direct licensing proceduresthat will enable us, for instance, to break past 3200MW (three thousand two hundred megawatts) of added capacity, just by this year’s end.

-Green hydrogen can also play a crucial part in that objective – on this, I note the recent EU Council agreement on the construction of the newGreen Corridor Pipeline in the Western Mediterranean, that will allow us to position Portugal as a green hydrogen exporter in the near future.

Achieving carbon neutrality can only be possible at the most optimal crossroads of national, regional, and international efforts.

China plays a decisive role in it, and we congratulate ourselves on the fact that both,Europe and Chinahave been able to steadily advance on these matters, namely on theEU-China High Level Dialogue on Climate.

-Energy, and new and renewable energies, constitute a very significant part of the Portugal-China economic and cooperation relationship, and we remain open that it can be further deepened and achieveevenbetter results.

Achieving carbon neutrality requires concerted efforts that can provide concrete results, all the while it remains essential to remain economic and logistically engaged to allow us to both learn and exchange best practices, cleaner, greener and more dependable energy technologies.

I Wish all a fruitful work

Thank you.