Hosted by the Future Earth Global Secretariat Hub China (China Hub), the Future Earth virtual symposium was launched on 24 November 2021. This is a bi-weekly symposium aiming to promote the objectives and goals of Future Earth, and to promote understandings on the latest research progress in the field of climate change and sustainability among young scholars and students.

The first symposium held online attracted over 500 participants, and the talks led to a lively discussion with special guests, Dr. Dahe Qin, Chair of the Chinese National Committee for Future Earth, Dr. Wenjie Dong, Professor at the Sun Yat-sen University, and two invited speakers, Dr. Panmao Zhai, a senior scientist at Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences (CAMS) and co-chair of the IPCC working group I (WG I), and Dr. Yang Chen, an associate scientist of CAMS and a science officer of WG I Technical Support Unit (TSU) of IPCC.

At the symposium, Dr. Zhai reported on “The past and the future of climate change” based on recently released IPCC AR6 report. He argued that the future changes in extreme events would be relevant to the magnitude of global warming. He also pointed out that in the current emission scenario Earth’s climate will continue to warm and the temperature rise would exceed 1.5 °C or even 2 °C unless strong mitigation measures are adopted to cut the emissions down to the pre-historic level.

Dr. Chen elaborated on extreme precipitation events, which increase the occurrences of record-breaking precipitation events globally or even lead to flooding. He also argued that climate change would not only alter the frequency, intensity and scope of extreme events, but also would change the characteristics of the event itself.

The Future Earth virtual symposium is also supported by China Association for Science and Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Chinese National Committee for Future Earth, and the Future Earth Global Secretariat Hub Taipei. China hub is going to work closely with other global hubs to promote collaboration, and hold future symposiums focused on more diversified topics in climate, environment and sustainability.