Jointly sponsored by the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, the School of Political Science and Public Administration and the Institute of Environmental Politics at Shandong University, the seminar on “Energy, Grain and Water Security Ties and China’s Response under the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda” was held in Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province, on May 6.

Energy, grain and water are three basic elements that human beings need to survive. Yu Hongyuan, director of the Institute for Comparative Politics and Public Policy Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said that sensitive and vulnerable security ties characterized by mutual influence and constraints have been formed between the three elements, in the larger context of global climate change.

With increasingly severe climate change, deterioration of each factor will affect the other two factors, threatening national, regional and even global security. Previous policy models cannot adapt to the new challenges brought by the interaction between the three elements. The international community should intensify collaborative governance on energy, grain and water resources, Yu added.

Li Xinlei, deputy director of the Institute of Environmental Politics at Shandong University, pointed out that currently, it is particularly necessary to build a dynamic, systematic and diverse resource governance system. Academics should integrate the realization of the “2030 sustainable development goals” with the construction of energy, grain and water security ties from four dimensions: global governance innovation and sustainable resource development models, sustainable development goals and three-dimensional security ties, geopolitical reform and regional non-traditional security strategy, and the construction of the community of human destiny and sustainable development diplomacy, Li said.