The UK-China Consortium of Engineering Education & Research (UCEER), in which Queen’s University Belfast is the leading UK institution, is holding the first Global PhD Conference on ‘Engineering for Carbon Zero’ (UCEER22-ECZ) online in April 2022. The conference is jointly organised by PhD students from Queen’s University Belfast and Tianjin University, China. PhD students from both institutions are the main organisers for this conference and PhD students or Masters students from around the world are invited to attend and present their latest research.

A large amount of carbon emissions and the resulting greenhouse effect are believed to be closely related to extreme weather and atmospheric environment.

Since the second industrial revolution, the extensive use of fossil energy has led to a sharp increase in CO₂ in the atmosphere. With the holding of the International Climate Conference and the recognition of this topic by the international community, reducing carbon emissions and controlling global warming has become an important topic in the 21st century. Many countries have pledged to achieve carbon neutrality, or carbon zero, by the middle of the 21st century in order to cope with the intensifying climate change. There are a large number of research and technical challenges that need to be solved urgently, including the use of sustainable energy, carbon capture, carbon utilization, carbon storage and so on.