Minister of Environment
Zhou Shengxian and UN Under-Secretary General
and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner
speaking at UNEP's headquarters
in Nairobi, Kenya
Nairobi, 11 July 2011
China's Minister of Environment Zhou Shengxian
today made his first visit to the UN Environment
Programme (UNEP) where he spoke on international
environmental cooperation and the promotion
of a Green Economy.
The Chinese Minister,
who is trained as an economist, told the
audience at UNEP's headquarters in Nairobi,
Kenya, that the financial crisis of 2008
has caused the most severe challenge to
the world economy since the Great Recession
in the 1930s. But the crisis, stressed Mr.
Zhou, has also created opportunity for human
innovation.
Mr. Zhou, who was welcomed
to the meeting by UN Under-Secretary General
and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner,
praised UNEP for launching -against the
backdrop of the global financial crisis-
a "Global Green New deal" and
the Green Economy, "In the short term,
developing a Green Economy may facilitate
economic recovery and create new job opportunities,"
he told the audience.
"Development of
a Green Economy aims at breaking the constraints
of resources and the environment's carrying-capacity
and at achieving the harmony between economy
and the environment," he added.
He said: "In the
long-term, developing a Green Economy will
promote larger scale, higher level and more
sustained development of the economy and
society."
The Minister pointed
out that China perhaps more than any country
needs to develop a Green Economy. The country's
economy has experienced impressive double-digit
growth for the past decade making it the
second largest economy in the world but
at the cost of the environment. "The
overall environmental degradation has not
been curbed and the environmental situation
is still grave and the pressure is mounting,"
he warned.
But China has been working
to reverse the degradation. In particular
in the past five years the country has made
remarkable achievements and has adopted
a series of measures to develop a Green
Economy. Of the four trillion Yuan economic
stimulus package allocated by the Chinese
Government to address the international
financial crisis, some 580 billion Yuan
is in green investment. The country is also
developing green industry such as renewable
energy and has introduced pilot projects
for a low-carbon economy.
And the Chinese Government's
efforts are paying off. In the past five
years, environmental protection has gained
strategic confidence. The emissions reduction
targets of major pollutants have been met
ahead of schedule. The Government has also
enforced environmental law that has shut
down over 20,000 enterprises violating the
law on discharged pollutants.
Indeed, environmental
protection has taken on new importance in
China with the launch in March of the 12th
Five Year Plan, which sets the country's
targets for the 2011-2015 period and which
has given prominence to climate change,
energy and environmental issues. In the
Plan energy consumption and CO2 emissions
per unit GDP will drop by 16% and 17%, respectively,
by 2015 compared to 2010.
"Environmental
protection is the way to development. Given
the impact it will have on the population,
we would rather slow down the growth rate
to protect the environment. At a strategic
level, we need to develop our country in
a healthy enivironment," he stressed.
