On 14 November 2022, hosted by Tongji University, the opening ceremony of United Nations Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE) 2022 Academy was held online, with a focus on Accelerating the Transition to Inclusive Green Economy: Synergy between Pollution Control and Carbon Reduction. From 14-18 November, more than 100 participants from China, Switzerland, US, Morocco, México,India, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Colombia, Zambia, Guinea, Rwanda,Ethiopia and so on, cover dozens of countries of local governments, industries, research institutes, and international organisations joined this five-day academy.

Mr. Siddharth Chatterjee, UN Coordinator in China, Mr. Steven Stone, Deputy Director of UNEP Economic Division and Professor Peiming Lyu, Executive Vice President of Tongji University attended the opening ceremony. Through keynote speeches, presentation and panel discussion, 40 experts from the Yale University, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, China University of Petroleum (Beijing), Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment, Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences, China Textile Industry Association, as well as UN agencies, will introduce their work on transition to green economy.

“To facilitate China’s acceleration of its transition to a people-centred, inclusive, low-carbon, and circular economy, we will support China to advance the greening of industry, assist the Government in stimulating the development and creation of new green industries deliver UN-supported interventions at the policy, institutional, and enterprise levels for cleaner and sustainable production practices, promote the use of renewable, low-carbon and off-grid energy solutions for rural villages, increasing the energy efficiency of industrial production and public buildings and promote the inclusion of climate change mitigation, sustainable consumption and environmental conservation in formal curricula and non-formal education”, said Mr. Siddharth Chatterjee at the opening ceremony.

Mr. Steven Stone “ I would like to congratulate the achievements PAGE China has made and hope this week-long Academy could bring together the stakeholders and give new impetus to the momentum of green economic transformation of China.”

Professor Peiming Lyu expressed the commitment of Tongji University in promoting the undertaking of sustainable development. Working more than two decades with UNEP and jointly established the Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development (IESD) in 2002, Tongji sets to act as an international platform capacity building as well as interdisciplinary research on SDGs. Working towards to the goal of carbon neutral in 2060, it is essential to explore and promote the synergy of the efforts on pollution control and carbon reduction.

The opening ceremony was moderated by Professor Zhiwei Wang, Dean of the College of Environmental Science and Engineering.

Launched at the Rio +20 in 2012, the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE), a partnership of 5 UN Agencies (UNEP, ILO, UNDP, UNIDO, and UNITAR) launched after the RIO+20 meeting to support countries in various stages of policy development and growth to move towards a green development combined with inclusive growth.

PAGE has expanded its influence with the joint efforts of UN agencies to support the global transition to an inclusive green economy. 2022 PAGE Academy is the first collaboration with Tongji University to build capacity for green economic development, provide the knowledge and skills needed to promote environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive economies, and enhance international exchange.