When travelling, sustainability is always at the forefront of my mind. I always put time and effort into reducing the carbon dioxide emissions (CO2e) produced by my actions, both directly and indirectly. Travelling to China for a year abroad, I will take advantage of the excellent rail network in the country to use as a lower CO2e option than flying, leading to a potential 86% reduction in my travel related CO2e from travel based on UK rail travel (https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint). This is helped by using the site Rome2Rio (https://www.rome2rio.com) which shows all possible methods of travelling between distant locations, allowing the choice of more sustainable methods. For example, to travel to Lhasa from my city of Suzhou, I can choose the slower option of travelling by train, paying as little as £40 to travel more than 4,000km!
A generally unseen part of CO2e is finance, I am mindful to harness the power that my personal finance choices hold by choosing to bank exclusively with institutions that work to progress the UN’s SDGs. The Make My Money Matter campaign (https://makemymoneymatter.co.uk/) is a great resource for highlighting the power that individuals have to affect change using their own money and avoid funding dangerous, unsustainable practices such as fossil fuel extraction without their knowledge. These kinds of extractions can work against UN SDG’s 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 directly (https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-climate-environmental-and-health-impacts-of-fossil-fuels-2021) and are continuing to cause untold damage to our planet. Even as a student reliant on student loans, it is possible to move away from supporting these methods by simply changing your bank if they continue to finance these areas.
Currently China’s usage of coal is slowing progress towards Net Zero. Coal is responsible for approximately 80% of the country’s total CO2e from fuel combustion (https://www.iea.org/countries/china/coal#what-is-the-climate-impact-of-coal-in-china). In my studies I have focussed on sustainable methods of energy generation and know that China is also responsible for innovative new technologies helping the transition to cleaner travel; for example, the development of sodium batteries that can be derived from sea salt and remove the need for environmentally damaging heavy metals, such as cobalt and nickel, is opening up more sustainable pathways for the manufacture of electric vehicles (https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20250530-how-electric-scooters-are-driving-chinas-salt-battery-push). Whilst in China, I plan to study these new technologies and apply my skills to problems facing the industry to progress SDG’s 7 and 17, bringing affordable, clean energy to more people through global knowledge transfers.
Finally, I plan to learn about restorative projects that work to protect the local ecology such as the Zhangjiagang Bay project from my own university (https://sdgs.un.org/partnerships/zhangjiagang-bay-practice-ecological-restoration-china). Successful projects such as these are evidence that protection can happen on a large scale, balancing the needs of the local population to travel via important waterways with the crucial need to protect the ecosystems they are reliant upon. The knowledge of these success stories motivates the development of more sustainable travel on water without sacrificing the health of the ecosystem in the vicinity.
