Thought Leadership

The impact of climate change and extreme weather events is exacerbating the challenge of achieving China’s key food and energy goals – and increasing the urgency. Two newly awarded scientists explain how the dual nature of their work is contributing to finding viable climate solutions that meet the challenge.

With a population of 1.4 billion, ensuring an adequate food supply is critical in China. So too is the need for a reliable and powerful energy system. Set both of these goals against the backdrop of a climate that is changing quickly and dramatically and you begin to see the scale of the challenges facing the scientists who are working to achieve them.

Two of these scientists are geography professors from the Faculty of Social Sciences (FoSS) at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) – Assistant Professors Laibao Liu and Peng Zhu, both of whom were recently awarded the “Excellent Young Scientists Fund” for 2025 by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). Their research is linked by their mission to help find solutions to China’s most pressing climate-related challenges: ensuring food and energy security.

Energy Security
After completing undergraduate studies in geography, Professor Liu became interested in the impact of extreme climate events after reading a 2012 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) entitled Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation. His research interests focus on climate change and carbon neutrality, and on examining how extreme climate events, and droughts in particular, are affecting the land carbon sink.
“I feel very humbled and very, very happy to receive this award because it is a recognition for my past research,” says Professor Liu, who received the award for his paper Climate Change and Carbon Source/Sink. “It indicates that my research is valued and appreciated by the NSFC, so I really appreciate that.”

The land carbon sink is a key player in removing CO₂ (carbon dioxide), and cuts an estimated 30% of CO₂ from the atmosphere. However, extreme climate events such as droughts, heatwaves and fires are damaging the land ecosystem and impacting its ability to absorb carbon. Professor Liu’s work aims to reverse this impact.

“We want to stabilise land carbon sink, or if possible, at least strengthen parts of the land carbon sink,” he explains.

In tandem, he is also examining the potential for renewable energy sources to play a bigger role in China’s energy mix. Wind and solar power offer the biggest potential, but both of these are unstable energy sources whose effectiveness fluctuates according to prevailing weather conditions.

Bright Future
So far, the research has shown highly promising potential, though he hastens to add that the project scope is vast and his contributions so far are small.

“Our results indicate that 67% of the electricity demand in China can be met by wind and solar, without energy storage, and any other energy sources,” Professor Liu says.

China’s main wind and solar energy departments have cited the findings to support accelerating the country’s solar and wind energy development, he adds.

Food Security
As with energy security, the challenge of ensuring food security is closely linked to climate change.

Like Professor Liu, Professor Peng Zhu studies two sides of the problem: finding ways to optimise supply levels and at the same time minimising the problems impacting crop yields that are posed by climate change.

As an undergraduate, Professor Zhu majored in remote sensing technology before becoming interested in ecosystems. He shifted his focus to agriculture in order to find more practical applications for his work. He won the award for his paper Responses and Sustainable Yield Enhancement of Crop Systems under Climate Change.

“This is, of course, a very great recognition for our past research,” he says. “And it is also an inspiration for our future research, because my research now employs a large amount of spatial big data, and requires a large amount of computation facilities. So this grant could be utilised to empower us by getting more computational resources.”

His team uses satellite data to monitor crop production processes on a large scale and to gather detailed information on the physical crop environment, including radiation levels, temperature and water vapour. This data is used to refine an improved model that monitors the yield of major staple food crops, such as rice, wheat and soybean.

With the improved model, his team can simulate crop rate productivity and assess the environmental impact to study how to improve efficiency while optimising the use of resources such as water and fertiliser.

“When we improve the resource utilisation efficiency, we can cut down on the water demand, greenhouse gas emissions and also fertiliser utilisation,” explains Professor Zhu.

A Win-Win Outlook
Agricultural production is a major contributor to climate change because of its large emittances of greenhouses gases, such as methane emissions from rice paddies. However, Professor Zhu’s work shows that as well as adding to the challenges, crop fields can also be part of the solution.

“We find that there is actually a large potential by sequestrating more carbon in the soil system,” he explains. “We can utilise the improved management practices and return the crop residues to the crop fields, and then this kind of carbon will be stored in the soil. This will increase the carbon storage in the soil, and also improve the soil fertility, so it’s a win-win strategy.”

The research of Professors Liu and Zhu into China’s fundamental food and energy challenges highlights the impactful work central to the Faculty of Social Sciences. Their success in winning the highly competitive NSFC award cements the Faculty’s position as a leader in developing tangible solutions for the world’s most pressing environmental issues.

Contributing writer: Liana Cafolla