On September 30, 2021, Suzhou Municipal Development and Reform Commission and Energy Foundation China (EF China) held a signing ceremony for a five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Strategic Cooperation between the two parties. City officials of the manufacturing powerhouse and trade center in Eastern China province of Jiangsu, EF China heads, provincial representatives, business leaders, scholars, and other guests witnessed the ceremony, including Kunlin XU, Member of the Standing Committee of Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of Suzhou Municipal Party Committee; Wei ZUO, Party Secretary of Southeast University; Qingwen WU, Deputy Secretary of Suzhou Municipal Committee and Acting Mayor; Haidong GU, Member of Municipal Committee and Executive Vice Mayor; Guoqiang PAN, Member and Secretary General of Municipal Committee; Ji ZOU, CEO and President of EF China; Lin XU, Chair of U.S.-China Green Fund; and Xiaoming ZHU, President of Yangtze River Delta Carbon Neutrality Strategy Development Institute of Southeast University. At the event, the inauguration ceremony of the Suzhou-based Carbon Institute was held as well. The Yangtze River Delta, one of China’s most developed regions, comprises Shanghai and the neighboring Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.

In their presence, Ming LING, Director of Suzhou’s Development and Reform Commission, and Jie LI, EF China’s Vice President for Programs signed the MOU for 2021–2025. In the next five years, the two sides plan to cooperate through policy research, pilot demonstration, and other projects conducted by research institutions including Southeast University in topics such as Suzhou’s pathway to early carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, structural changes toward more renewables, industrial energy efficiency improvement and carbon capture deployment, green buildings and low carbon cities, decarbonized transportation systems, coordinated air quality management, low carbon investment and financing innovation, and strategy communications. The goal is to establish Suzhou as a pioneer low carbon city in China, and among the best in the world.

On behalf of the city of 10 million people, Secretary Xu expressed gratitude to Southeast University and EF China for their strong support to Suzhou’s future. With its high-tech manufacturing strength, the city is earnestly implementing China’s and Jiangsu’s development strategies for higher quality growth, focused on early carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, accelerated intelligent and digital transformation in industry sectors, optimized energy mix, and green transportation and building, according to him. Through close cooperation with Southeast University and EF China, Suzhou hopes to take in fresh talent, gain more technical support, attract enterprise investment, and find a robust pathway of green and low carbon development, while also enforcing it with a set of practical and feasible implementation schemes, the city secretary said.

Professor Zou expressed the hope that the comprehensive cooperation would promote decarbonized growth in Suzhou as a whole, plus pilot demonstration in the city’s key areas, such as Xiangcheng District and the county-level Kunshan City under Suzhou, both of which are high-tech manufacturing centers attracting massive foreign direct investment. These efforts will help implement low carbon development on the ground, he said.

According to Secretary Zuo of Southeast University, whose main campus is located in Jiangsu’s provincial capital Nanjing, his university has in recent years transformed its programs to improve teaching and academic research in the field of new energy resources. The Carbon Institute is an important step toward the university’s future development, and the university hopes to cooperate with Suzhou and EF China in depth and achieve more forward-looking scientific milestones, said him.

In his speech, Acting Mayor Wu asked EF China, Southeast University, and other think tanks to put more resources in supporting Suzhou finding the pathway to the early achievement of its carbon targets, and thus get more practical achievements and useful experiences along the way.