Topic: The Race to Decarbonization in the Next Phase of Globalization

Climate change leads to increasingly more frequent extreme climate events, prompting a shift from global consensus to global action on the low-carbon transition. While the global economy is currently experiencing a period of reverse globalization, the concept of low-carbon globalization is gaining growing acceptance and agreement. In this context, various stakeholders remain interconnected and embedded in global supply and value chains to varying extents, with production, technology, trade, and investment all playing interdependent roles in the processes of globalization. Low-carbon globalization, much like economic globalization, operates as a "double-edged sword". Although more countries are accepting responsibilities for the transition, many fail to fulfill their obligations, resulting in an uneven dislocation of the benefits and burdens of a low-carbon economy. As interactions occur across multiple scales, global challenges increasingly manifest through regional clusters, while regional responses often have global ripple effects. The widespread adoption of renewable energy technologies and carbon capture and storage (CCS) methods has led to varying impacts on the carbon footprints of countries and regions in both the Global North and South. Rising international disputes and geopolitical conflicts are reshaping the understanding of de-globalization, regionalization, and re-globalization, necessitating a deeper exploration of the characteristics of the next phase of globalization. There is also an urgent need to assess the potential advantages and challenges that lie ahead in the race toward decarbonization.

Proposed topics include, but are not limited to:
● Impacts of carbon tariffs on international trade and carbon emissions;
● Trade-offs in low-carbon technologies and CCUS deployment;
● The growing carbon footprint of artificial intelligence;
● Carbon outsourcing from the perspective of developing countries;
● Spatial spillover effects of carbon emissions and carbon footprints;
● Shared responsibilities for carbon footprints between the Global South and North;
● Cost-benefit allocation in collaborative carbon emission reduction efforts;
● Pathways and challenges for Belt and Road countries in the low-carbon transition;
● Inequality and optimization in the global low-carbon transition;
● Measurement and implications of low-carbon globalization.

Low-carbon transition, carbon neutrality, carbon footprint, decarbonization, levelized cost of energy, low-carbon technologies

15 Jun 2025