Zhou Shengxian, Ministry of Environmental Protection of China delivered a speech at the UN Compound in Nairobi in Kenya.

The following is his speech.

The international financial crisis occurred in September of 2008 has caused the most severe challenge to world economy since the Great Recession in the 1930s.In Chinese, the word " (Weiji-crisis)"is the combination of Chinese characters " (danger)" and " (opportunity)". In that, danger implies opportunity and danger can be turned into an opportunity while everything depends on human efforts and innovation is valued.

In the short term, developing green economy may facilitate economic recovery and create new job opportunities. In the mid-term, developing green economy will raise resource efficiency, reduce pollution emission intensity and curb degradation trend of ecological environment. In the long-term, developing green economy will promote lager scale, higher level and more sustained development of economy and society.

However, we are also clear that the imbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustained problems in our development are very prominent. Although with some improvement in given areas, the overall environmental degradation has not been curbed and the environmental situation is still grave and the pressure is mounting. It can be said that China is much more in need to develop green economy than any other countries in the world. For my country, developing a green economy is an effective approach to address the increasing constraints on resources and the environment, an objective demand for transformation of the economic growth mode, and the internal requirement for safeguarding and improving people's welfare as well as a strategic option for raising our competitiveness and expanding new room for development.

The period of the past five years was an extraordinary period in the course of the development of China and it was also the five years that China has made remarkable achievements in the field of environmental protection.

During the five years, the Chinese government has put environmental protection at a strategic position. During the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, the Chinese Government will firmly establish the ideas of green development, low carbon development, sustainable development and harmonious development between man and nature.

By 2015, the energy consumption and CO2 emission per unit GDP will go down by 16% and 17% respectively compared with that of 2010. The total SO2 emission and COD discharge will go down by 8% compared with that of 2010. The total discharge of ammonia nitrogen and NOx will be reduced by 10% compared with that of 2010. The environment quality will enjoy significant improvement.

To promote the development of green economy, joint efforts of all the countries in the world need to be made.

To this end, I would like to put forward the following three suggestions:

Firstly, to develop green economy, we should establish a more equitable and rational international economic order. We should improve global economic governance with innovation; promote international economic and trade order that are conducive to resource saving and environmentally friendly; turning global economy towards a more equitable and rational direction. We should firmly oppose and resist various kinds of protectionism including the green trade barrier.

Secondly, to develop green economy, we should respect the individual country's basic condition.

Thirdly, to develop green economy, we should strengthen international cooperation.

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)