From AFP, via World Business Council for Sustainable Development website:
Teenager Zhu Xiaotong’s home a few hours’ drive outside Beijing is a world away from the acrid air and snarling traffic jams that have come to dominate China’s energy-hungry capital.
Cherry tomatoes, capsicum and spring onions rise up from a little garden patch that forms the centrepiece of her family’s brick courtyard home, while a solar panel heater ensures the Zhu’s have warm water even in winter.
Zhu, the 19-year-old daughter of cabbage farmers, has also for the past few months cooked the family meal in their sparse kitchen on a new eco-friendly stove that burns crop waste ultra-efficiently instead of noxious coal. [Full Text]
Read also Combating climate change: China goes on offensive by Ding Yimin. Following is the full text of the speech delivered by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi at the 2007 Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting:
President Clinton, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, it’s a great pleasure for me to attend the 2007 annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative at the invitation of President Clinton.
President Clinton has in recent years made admirable efforts to promote international cooperation from poverty alleviation, disaster relief, and the prevention and treatment of HIV-AIDS.
The Clinton Global Initiative, sponsored by President Clinton, addresses many issues, including sustainable development, poverty alleviation, health, education, and climate change.
And it is important in boosting international cooperation in resolving these global issues that concern the interests of all countries. I greatly appreciate this initiative taken by President Clinton. Here, I would like to speak on the topic of economic development and climate change. By the way, this time I’ve come for the UN General Assembly session, and climate change features prominently during the session, and I’m very glad to have this opportunity to be in your midst. And thank you for giving me this stage.
Ladies and gentlemen, we’re living in an age of deepening economic globalization, increasing scientific and technological innovations, and unprecedented opportunity for human development.
On the other hand, global economic development is confronted with many challenges, particularly mounting pressure on energy and resources and acute ecological degradation.
Global warming, rising sea level, extreme weather, and weather-related natural disasters caused by climate change are adversely affecting the natural ecological system and the human habitat. Climate change has become a pressing challenge for the international community.
A review of history shows that climate change occurs in the course of development.
It is both an environment issue and a development issue. But ultimately, it is a development issue.
As pointed out in the United Nations framework convention on climate change, most of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases originated in developed countries, where per capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low.
The share of global emissions originating in developing countries will grow as they work to meet their social and development needs.
To prevent climate change from endangering human survival and development while maintaining economic development and meeting the legitimate demand of the people, this is an issue that concerns the well being and the future of all mankind.
Economic development and the environmental protection and efforts to tackle climate change should be mutually reinforcing rather than mutually conflicting.
For developing countries like China, whose level of economic development is still low and whose people are yet to live a better life, the most depressing issue for them is to grow the economy and raise people’s living standards.
Efforts to tackle climate change should promote economic development and not be pursued at the expense of the economic development.
On the other hand, we must not fail to see that the economic development model of high-energy consumption, high pollution, and high emissions is not sustainable. And the path of pursuing development first and treating pollution next is not a viable one.
The best environment policy is also the best economic policy. (Applause) Countries should all incorporate — thank you.
Countries should all incorporate environmental protection into their overall economic development strategies and take resolute measure to follow a path of sustainable development.
This will enable us to address environment issues through economic development and promote economic development by resolving environment issues, thus ensuring both economic development and the environmental protection.
Ladies and gentlemen, China will remain the largest developing country for long time to come, and there are imbalances between urban areas of different regions and between economic and social development.
Its projected GNP is behind the 100th place globally. And there are still over 20 million poor rural people and more than 22 million urban residents receiving basic living allowances.
China is faced with the daunting task of growing its economy and eliminating poverty. The Chinese government, with a strong sense of responsibility to the Chinese people and the people of the world, takes climate change seriously and has taken complete measures to tackle it.
At the APAC economic leaders meeting in Sidney earlier this month, President Hu Jintao reaffirmed China’s position on climate change and spoke on the forceful measures it has adopted in addressing climate change.
A national leading group on climate change headed by Premier Wen Jiabao has been set up and China has promulgated a series of related laws and regulations. It released a national program on climate change in June, the first developing country to do so.
China has contributed its share to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by carrying out a series of policy measures, including economic adjustment, improving the energy mix, raising energy efficiency and forestation.
Statistics show that by raising energy efficiency alone, China saved 800 million tons of standard coal from 1991 to 2005 and the equivalent of reducing 1.8 billion tons of CO2.
China has set the targets of reducing energy intensity by 20 percent, reducing discharge of majoring pollutants by 10 percent, and the increasing forest cover from 18.2 percent to 20 percent for the period between the end of 2005 and 2010.
All these steps show the Chinese Government’s commitment to tackling climate change. The Chinese Government pursues sustainable development as a national strategy and the environmental protection as a basic national policy. It believes that environmental problems should be resolved through development and is actively exploring ways to ensure coordinated environmental protection and economic development.
China is fully implementing what we call the scientific thinking on development, which puts people first and aims at promoting comprehensive, balanced and sustainable development.
We are endeavoring to transform the inefficient economic growth model, and we are working to ensure balance between economic development and population and resources and the pursuit of harmony between man and nature.
China is pursuing an eco-friendly development path to achieve economic development, make life better for its people, and protect the environment.
We are committed to controlling greenhouse gas emissions and strengthening our capacity to adapt to climate change so as to play a constructive role in tackling climate change.
Ladies and gentlemen, as the impact of climate change is global in nature and concerns the interests of all countries, this issue can only be addressed through extensive international cooperation.
Developed countries should face up to their historical responsibility and the reality of their high per capita emissions.
They should follow the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, which is embodied in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol and take the lead in emission reduction.
They should help developing countries improve their capacity to tackle climate change and take the path of sustainable development by providing financial assistance, transferring technologies, and assisting them in capacity building and adopting to climate change.
Developing countries, on their part, should take measures in light of their conditions, give high priority to introducing advanced clean technologies, make their due contribution to tackling climate change.
The Chinese government will, as always, promote and participate in international cooperation on climate change. It will continue to take an active part in the negotiations on environmental conventions concerning climate change and the biodiversity among trade and the environment.
It will promote international cooperation and clean development mechanisms and technology transfer, take part in other cooperation mechanisms such as the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and the Climate and support their supplementary role. China will continue to make unremitting efforts to tackle climate change.
Not long an ago a leading group was set up in the Chinese Foreign Ministry to provide guidance to China’s diplomatic efforts to address climate change. As China’s foreign minister, I am the head of this group.
We have also appointed a special representative for negotiations on climate change. This, once again, shows the Chinese Government’s commitment to participate in international cooperation in addressing climate change.
Ladies and gentlemen, peace and development are the core of our times. We shall respect history, address current problems, be future oriented, and carry out cooperation in good faith.
By doing so, we can certainly strike a balance between promoting economic and tackling climate change and realize the harmonious co-existence between man and nature. Thank you. Thank you very much.
