Shenzhen-headquartered Tencent Holdings on Wednesday launched an online platform that aims to fire up innovation in low-carbon technology in China by connecting entrepreneurs, investors and researchers to each other and to resources, tools and data. The company hopes the platform – called TanLIVE because “tan” means carbon in Chinese – will function as China’s version of Climate-KIC, the European Union’s largest climate-focused innovation community. “Transformation of traditional industries to a low-carbon model engages a long value chain,” said Xu Hao, vice-president of Tencent’s sustainable social value department and head of Tencent’s carbon-neutral lab. “Digitalisation can help connect the dots across the value chain and significantly improve efficiency in catalysing and scaling innovations.” The commercialisation of low-carbon technologies is the biggest challenge in the next two to three decades for China and the world to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) and stop the climate crisis, Xu said. The transition to a low-carbon economy could disrupt traditional industries and current business ecosystems, yet resources for the development of climate technology are currently fragmented and non-searchable, he said. TanLIVE aims to help users to tap resources such as funds, pilot programmes, and competitions to spur innovation. The major functions include a resource pool for enterprises, investors, and incubators to publish information on their resources; a toolkit that gathers policy insights, data and analysis tools required for low-carbon innovation; and a “TanLIVE passport” – a unified account with access to all climate-focused sites in partnership with TanLIVE. “The advancement of technology always needs to go through ‘the valley of death’ before it achieves mass application and turns into a successful industry,” Xu said. “We believe the death valley for low-carbon technologies will be deeper and take longer.” Escaping that valley and progressing towards large-scale application and commercialisation of low-carbon technologies looms as a big challenge for China and the rest of the world in the next 20 to 30 years to achieve net-zero emissions, Xu added. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), 75 per cent of the emission reductions necessary to meet net-zero emissions are dependent on technologies which have not yet reached commercial maturity, and it could take at least five years for the market to largely adopt some of those technologies. China, the world’s largest GHG emitter, has ramped up its resources and capital deployment to support low-carbon innovation, as the country is committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2060 . China to unveil new rules for climate funds to rein in ‘greenwashing’: sources From 2008 to 2017, China’s share of global patent applications in the field of green technology jumped from 20 per cent to 80 per cent, according to data from Beijing-based non-profit Bluetech Clean Air Alliance. According to Zhu Xiaowen, venture director at Plug and Play China, from 2013 to 2019, global investment capital in climate tech grew 37.5 times, three times faster than investment capital growth in the field of artificial intelligence. “We hope that through a common platform, investors and big corporates can continue to understand the market demand and empower more start-ups to co-build a low-carbon ecosystem in China,” she said.