Urban agglomeration is an important carrier for promoting high-quality development, creating a high-quality life, and comprehensively building a modern socialist country. In the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, it is emphasized that "leveraging the role of city clusters and metropolitan areas to promote coordinated development of large, medium, and small cities and push forward with urbanization that is centered on county seats", "Guided by the principle that cities should be built by the people and for the people, we will improve urban planning, construction, and governance and move faster to change the development models of super-large and mega cities”, “carrying out urban renewal projects and improve urban infrastructure to build livable, resilient, and smart cities". These important discussions have clarified the basic connotation of the development path of cities with Chinese characteristics and clarified the goals and tasks of modern city construction.

“Bay Area” usually refers to the port group and town group formed by many seaports and towns distributed around coastal ports, and the economic effect derived is called “Bay Area Economy”. Looking at the world, the “Bay Area urban agglomeration” has become an important growth pole for world economic development, and it is also a new carrier for international competitiveness, especially for innovation. It is in this context that “Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Bay Area District” emerged as the times require, and it is China’s forward-looking strategy to accurately grasp the new focus of international competition.

Bay area urban agglomeration concentrate most of the world’s population and are the largest consumers of resources and energy. The transition towards more sustainable futures thus fundamentally depend on the transformation of urban systems from linear to circular and from carbon intensive to carbon neutral. Urban transitions need to draw from the scientific, technical, and managerial innovation capabilities of cities and from opportunities derived from the spatial concentration of population and economy, which create adequate conditions to explore new low carbon and circular business and socio-economic models. In addition, bay area also provides the understanding of the dynamics of the transformation and creates inclusive spaces for experimentation to face the new forms of ecological environmental governance.

In order to better understand how to be a role leader in the circular economy, carbon neutral and green transition, the 2nd International Bay Area Urban Agglomeration Green Development Conference (IBACEC) and the 2024 Academic Annual Meeting of Urban Agglomeration Green Development Committee of Chinese Society for Urban Studies (CSUS): “High-quality Development Oriented Bay Area Urban Agglomeration Green Transitions”, is proposed in Zhuhai and Macao from 14-18 August, 2024 to set up an academic exchange platform for exploring the theoretical method, technical innovation and management practice of the bay city agglomeration in the circular economy, carbon neutral and green transformation.