Vice Premier Zeng, Minister Zhou, dear friend Minister Xie, colleagues, friends, ladies & gentlemen, Members of the Council,
First and foremost, I would like to preface my remarks by expressing my admiration, my admiration for the leadership and vision of Vice Premier and Minister Zhou. Thank you very much! I want to express specifically also in the name of our good friend, Vice Chairman Greenhill, who apologized not to be here today, so at this moment, you are sitting as a deputy here and delivering a speech, thank you very much for this as well.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are starting a new five-year. The first meeting is always the meeting for agenda setting. It’s a meeting to touch face of new Members. It is chance to express our expectations for this new five-year term. But what time is that, it’s a time only several weeks after the 17th Congress of Communist Party of China. Mr. Vice Premier, I have a chance exactly only some days after this speech （by Hu Jintao）to be in Shanghai, at Tongji University. You know, I am a professor there. After retiring, it’s good to be a professor again! And I can inform you that I go on in what UNEP is partnering with Tongji University. You can’t imagine, what the interests all the young people and students expressed in this speech of the President Hu Jintao. You see those sentences. They ask what they expound. What to do to realize this for a good future in China? You know a good future is important for the people living in this country and this great nation. We know that your work has important impacts to environmental protection and emission reductions in China and is important for the world of economic repercussions and also for the ecological repercussion as well. They ask the question as the President singles out the new requirements for attaining the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the harmonious society. They ask the question how to promote the conservation culture by basically forming an energy and resource efficient and environment-friendly structure of industries, and the mode of consumption. It is at the center of all our interests to propel these three transitions, which the Vice Premier refers to as well. The transition also go beyond the heavy industry and chemicals, knowing that they ask us to contribute also to the solution of those industries in the situation we are live in, and Mr. Chairman and Vice Premier, I am very happy to be at the table of very outstanding reporter of chemicals. That is important. It gives me a chance to express our thanks to the Secretariat. The Secretariat prepared this meeting very very seriously. I am an old hands. Vice Premier was told that I am a veteran here. So others are ladies who saw they are never veterans, they are always young. But as a man, I am a veteran. And therefore I can give some judgments on the papers. And that is not to criticize the past, but to underline this is extremely good, it’s world class. It was added by two speeches we learned, your speech, Vice Premier, giving us the signal of where to go and what is the status. What is the status in the transition from heavily relying on increased consumption of materials and resources to rely mainly on advances in science and technology? Science and technology, we know, not only in this country, nearly all the world that, nature capital is more and more important for the future, for overcoming poverty and give all the people a good prospective in the globalized world.
It is linked with transformation and innovation. Yes we all know from our table those paper “Innovation and Environment-friendly Society”. What kind of innovation in institutions? We underline in the last meeting of CCICED in the last phase the need for the development of the institutional setting, having in mind that environment and sustainable development has a new dimension for the future. We really believe that it is necessary to stick on those for the future innovation with regard to policies, innovation with regard to technologies. We are meeting in a time when the Premier himself was responsible for the Working Group on Climate Change Action Plan. I believe this gives us a very clear signal how important this topic is. Yes we are extremely happy and honored that our good friend Pachauri is with us. Congratulations, Mr. Pachauri for the Nobel Peace Prize, for IPCC!
I think it also gives us a signal that if you cannot overcome the burden of environment in this case of the climate change, we cannot have a peaceful world in the future. It is a very clear signal. And the Premier accounts himself take the responsibility for this topic give us hope that there must be a transition to a much more energy efficient as developed country as we learned in this speech before. It is also the time for the 11th Five-Year Plan. Congratulations to the Vice Premier for the information that the GDP in China this year will increase at 11.5%! What a figure! What a perspective! What a signal for the realization of the Millennium Development Goals to overcome poverty.
Without the success in this country, we would not be able to reach the 50% reduction target in 2015 without any doubt. And then to link this with environment targets: with 20% increase of energy efficiency and 10% less pollutants. That is the signal we need to award, and I am very sure that you will do your utmost to give advice and to give backing for the inter-linkages of environment and development, knowing that only balanced approach is a stable approach. Mr. Vice Premier, I will never forget your wonderful speech delivered on the 23 Session of Governing Council of UNEP in Nairobi in February of 2005. It was really the start of this new dimension and the headline of this speech was “Strengthen Environmental Protection and Achieve Sustainable Development”. All these are integrated: life-cycle economy, producer responsibility, changing consumption and production pattern. Exactly, this is the chance. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Premier, I can inform you that there are 22 International Members in this Council, quite a number of new, quite number of old faces, but all joined in one common target. Let’s join our hands, let’s cooperate with our friends in China those experts from scientific community, with politicians and with those directly linked with civil society. I mention to my students in Tongji University. I want to do my uppermost also to give this explanation today. Therefore, thank you very much for giving me this chance as a Vice Chairman to link this expectations of society and to underline and to prove that 22 International Members are really dedicated to do their uppermost in the new phase of China Council.
Thank you very much!
