“2016 Beijing Energy Week” held successfully with support from Columbia Beijing Center

2016 Beijing Energy Week (BEW) was held with great success from July 16- 20 in Beijing. A 4-day-workshop convened at Columbia Global Center | Beijing, Tsinghua University, and other places.The workshop brought together students, leaders from academia, and energy practitioners around the world to network and debate about the energy and sustainable development issues. 

July 17, 2016

2016 Beijing Energy Week (BEW) was held with great success from July 16- 20 in Beijing. A 4-day-workshop convened at Columbia Global Center | Beijing, Tsinghua University, and other places.The workshop brought together students, leaders from academia, and energy practitioners around the world to network and debate about the energy and sustainable development issues. A variety of topics were discussed by renowned speakers, both from China and abroad, regarding global energy policy, oil and gas demand outlook, renewable energy, electricity market, energy project financing, climate change and many other issues.

As one of the co-founders of BEW, Manuel Pinho, Adjunct Professor of School of International and Public Affair at Columbia University and former Minister of Economy and Innovation of Portugal, made an insightful speech themed “China and a fully-integrated world energy market”. In an interview with CNTV, he stated he was very willing to see young students are paying attention to the fields of energy and sustainable development, and hoped that more and more young leaders may work together to build a platform for increasing international cooperation in global sustainable development and improvement of earth environment.

The Beijing Energy and Sustainability Week (BEW) is an annual summer workshop, established in 2015 as a not-for-profit initiative by world elite faculties and students from top Chinese universities and ivy-league universities. The core value of BEW is independent, innovative, and impartial. It strives to help young people to demonstrate leadership and entrepreneurship in global sustainable development, as well as to build an effective platform for young students and leaders to share experience and learning from each other.

Sheng Yan, one of BEW founders and the event organizers, also a Columbia alumnus, stated that thanks to the world's focus on energy and sustainable development issues, the 2016 BEW has attracted a lot of attention and held successfully. Meanwhile, the increasing opportunities and challenges in the area in China will bring more young people to join the discussion of the issues. He is optimistic that the 2017 BEW will provide participants with greater experience of exchanging and discussing.