The Successful Convening of Green Sustainable Development Conference

BEIJING, Jan. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- In order to implement the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, open up China's green urbanization market, support the transition from "burden-sharing" to "opportunity-sharing", from "zero-sum game" to "mutual benefit and win-win" among various countries, Green Sustainable Development Conference was successfully held in Beijing during 17^th -18^th, 2019, which is co-hosted by Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) and China Urban-townization Promotion Council (CUPC), with the Nordic Council of Ministers as partner. The theme of the conference is "Sustainable Development and Global Cooperation on Green Urbanization". Organizations and enterprises in relevant fields from United Nations, Nordic Council of Ministers, China and Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland conducted a wide and deep discussion. All Participants agreed that the Nordic countries have successfully achieved coordinated developments among the economic, environmental and social development and established a green sustainable development mechanism. China needs to draw on the successful experiences of the Nordic countries, strengthen international coordination and cooperation, and establish partnership on green sustainable development.

The opening ceremony was held on January 17^th, 2019.The keynote speakers included Mr. Laurent Fabius, Chairman of the French Constitutional Council, former Prime Minister/former Speaker of the National Assembly on Climate Change, President of COP 21; Mr. Sishe Hu, member of the CPPCC Standing Committee and Vice-Chairman of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries; Mr. Xinli Zheng, Executive Vice-President of China Urban-townization Promotion Council, Former Vice Director of the Policy Research Office of the CCCPC, and Mr. Svein Thorstein Berg, Managing Director of Nordic Innovation. Jingan Zhang, Vice President of China Urban-townization Promotion Council, presided over the opening ceremony of the conference.

Mr. Sishe Hu, Vice President of Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries delivered an opening speech on behalf of the organizers. He pointed out that under the current economic, social development situation and the background of the new scientific and technological revolution, the green sustainable development is the golden key to open a new round of shared globalization.

Laurent Fabius, Chairman of the French Constitutional Council, former Prime Minister/former Speaker of the National Assembly on Climate Change, President of COP 21 delivered another keynote. He pointed out that the global eco-environment is facing "red alerts" and threats in various fields, and we must tackle the challenges with cooperation. Mr. Fabius summarized the spirit of the Paris Agreement adopted during his presidency of the United Nations Climate Change Conference as the keywords of "better, faster and together", among which "together" is the most important one, emphasizing collaboration among a variety of entities, including countries, citizens and enterprises; in political, economic and scientific fields, and on both regional and national levels. Meanwhile, Mr. Fabius believed that the problems presented at this stage, if handled properly, may become great opportunities in the future. To seize the opportunities, we must focus on the role of innovation and to combine the stakeholders with technological innovation and social innovation. To sum up, Mr. Fabius said that environmental problems should not be addressed in an isolated way where different industries may have different solution, but need to be handled as a comprehensive way. Mr. Fabius fully affirmed the importance of this conference in reaching global consensus and jointly tackling global challenges.

Mr. Svein Berg, Managing Director of Nordic Innovation, delivered a keynote speech on behalf of Mr. Dagfinn Høybråten, Secretary - General of the Nordic Council of Ministers. His speech addressed the topics on the current cooperation between China and Nordic countries, Nordic solutions to global challenges and the future cooperation potentials between China and Nordic countries. He pointed out that technology, innovation and trade are important driving forces for the development of Nordic countries in the 21st century, driving the rapid growth of economy and cultivating many world-class Nordic enterprises in various fields. Nordic experience in dealing with global challenges can facilitate further and deeper cooperation with China in the future.

Mr. Xinli Zheng, Executive Vice-President of China Urban-townization Promotion Council, Former Vice Director of the Policy Research Office of the CCCPC, delivered a speech on promoting international cooperation in the field of green sustainable development. he pointed out that China's urbanization will be the largest, fastest and most far-reaching urbanization in the world, forming a huge market. China's urbanization is developing at three levels: three world-class urban agglomerations, sub-regional urban agglomerations of provincial capitals and small and medium-sized urban agglomerations with featured towns as network nodes. Urbanization with Chinese characteristics will play an important role as a model for other regions and become a new growth engine for the global economy. Xinli Zheng systematically elaborated on Nordic experience in realizing coordinated development of economic, social and eco-environment system, and explains a new way to realize the synergy of the coordination between green urbanization markets in China and technological innovations of sustainable development in Nordic countries in terms of cooperative objectives, cooperative mechanisms and systematization of international cooperation projects.

The opening ceremony also included the signing of the international cooperation projects of green sustainable development and the launching ceremony of the Future Reflection Plan.  Future Reflection Plan brings together influential think tanks, enterprises, financial institutions and social organizations from all over the world to jointly practice the value of green sustainable development in the form of public welfare and charity, and draw attention from whole society to deal with the challenges faced by children and adolescents and encourage and guide children and adolescents from around the world to involve themselves in green sustainable development.

In the morning of January 18^th 2019, the main forum was held, and experts from home and abroad delivered speeches on governance system for green sustainable development and innovation for sustainable green urbanization. Ms Kristina Persson, Founder of Independent Think-tank Global Utmaning (Global Challenge) and former Minister of Strategic Development and Nordic Cooperation of Sweden, delivered a speech on the governance system for green sustainable development. With the theme of 'from Paris Agreement to construction practice of local urban area'，Allan Larsson, Chairman of Viable Cities, Senior Adviser of ElectriCITY Hammarby Sjöstad 2.0 and former Minister of Finance of Sweden, introduced the construction experiences of the Hammarby ElectriCITY project. Egill Heiðar Gislason, Rotating Chairman, Board of Nordic Development Fund, take Nordic Development Fund as an example, to introduce the role of finance in urban sustainable development. Jiaxiang Li, former Administrator of Civil Aviation Administration of China, Dingming Xu, former Director of National Energy Administration of China, and Guanxiong Jiang, deputy Director of Center for International Economic and Technical Cooperation, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the three speakers from the perspectives of green aviation, energy and environmental protection and green supply chain, introduce the Impacts on sustainable development governance. Mr. Zuoming Lin, former Board Chairman of China Aviation Industry Group Corporation, and Mr. Jing'an Zhang, President of Research Association of China Science and Technology System Reform and the former Secretary-General of the Ministry of Science and Technology, expounds the practice of scientific and technological innovation of sustainable development and the important role of green innovation in the construction of ecological civilization, and fully proves that innovation is an important driving force to promote the sustainable development of green cities and towns.

On the afternoon of the 18th Jan. 2019, four parallel forums were held simultaneously, the theme of which are innovation for the sustainable development of science & technology and education; energy, environment and sym-biocity; society, culture and sustainable development, and financial support mechanism for sustainable development.

SOURCE Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC)