China and UK to work together on energy security

China and the UK will collaborate to address climate change and energy security after announcing a strategic alliance.

China's Energy Research Institute (ERI) and officials from the UK will adapt the British government's 2050 Pathways Analysis Calculator to assist in their new alliance.

The online tool allows organisations to explore energy-related risks and the balance between energy efficiency and building power generation capacity.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), with the support of the British Embassy Beijing, and the ERI will host a conference in Beijing in 2013.

South Korea and Belgium are also developing a similar alliance with the assistance of DECC and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Developing countries will also receive help as they develop their own calculators over the next two years.

Chinese and UK officials will engage with these countries at next years conference to promote the use of this methodology.

DECC's Carbon Plan, published in December 2011, used the 2050 Calculator to generate and predict three 2050 futures that illustrate the possibilities of reaching the UK’s carbon reduction target.