At the opening ceremony of 2010 Macao International Environmental Co-operation and Forum and Exhibition (2010MIECF), keynotes speakers from the Mainland and Czech Republic emphasised the urgency to cut emissions. Speaking on behalf of the Vice Chairman of National Development and Reform Commission, Mr Xie Zhenhua, the Commission’s Deputy Counsel of the Department of Climate Change, Mr Sun Zhen, said China would continue to make real effort in addressing climate change. “It will be one of our important strategic issues, and we have established working systems to tackle this problem. We have formulated the ‘National Climate Change Program’ and adopted a series of policy measures to restructure our economy, enhance energy efficiency, develop clean energy and optimize our energy structure,” he said. “China has always attached great importance to the development of new energy industries. Facing new challenges, we need to further innovate on and develop renewable energy technologies, energy saving and emission reduction technologies, clean coal technology and nuclear power technology. We need to push forward with circular economy, speed up the establishment of green low-carbon industries, architecture and transportation systems.” Speaking on behalf of the Minister of Environment Protection, Mr Zhou Shengxian, the Deputy Director-General of the Department of Human Resources Management and Institutional Affaris of the Ministry of Environment Protection, Mr Ren Yong, said that shift of economic growth mode presented new tasks and requirements for the exploration of new path to environmental protection. Mr Ren said, “We will do well the following activities: 1. study and address environmental problems from national macro strategic perspective; 2. speed up economic restructuring and foster emerging green industry; 3. strengthen innovation in green technologies; 4. advocate green consumption and facilitate environment-friendly public life style. The Advisor to the Prime Minister of Czech Republic and Former Minister of Environment of the Czech Republic, Mr Peter J. Kalas, said that obviously we must change the current unsustainable energy path we are now on, due to climate change concerns. To achieve international climate change goals, we had to introduce new policy frameworks that would promote adoption of decisive measures towards the low carbon energy path, said Mr Kalas. “To this end, we will need: 1. to develop technologies to ensure decoupling the economic growth from the energy growth, and the energy growth from the emission growth; 2. to increase the transfer of such technologies to emerging economies and developing countries where the major future increase in energy consumption and GHG emissions will occur; 3. to mobilize adequate financial capacity to enable such technology transfers,” he said. Speaking about the future of environmental protection, Mr Kalas said that since the Copenhagen climate change conference failed to adopt a post-Kyoto regime, further intensive negotiating effort would be needed during 2010 that should involve all parties including USA, China and India. For inquiries, please contact the 2010MIECF Secretariat in telephone (853) 7898-9675, fax (853) 2872-7123, email miecf2010@ipim.gov.mo, or visit the 2010 MIECF official website: www.macaomiecf.com.
