Carbon emissions play a key role in global warming caused by human activity. To comply with the Paris Agreement on climate change, China and Germany are aiming to significantly reduce their carbon emissions. Today, the President of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Professor (ETHZ) Dr Gerald Haug, and the President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor Dr Jianguo Hou, jointly signed the “Berlin Declaration: On the Path to Carbon Neutrality” at the opening of the Science for Future conference titled “On the Path to Carbon Neutrality”. The declaration emphasises the importance of basic research and international cooperation to achieve carbon neutrality, and sets out specific measures to reduce CO₂ emissions.