Germany and China intend to further expand environmental cooperation. This was agreed by Federal Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel during his political talks in China. It was decided to launch new joint projects on electric mobility, chemicals safety, electronic scrap and water management. Another crucial topic on the agenda of the Minister's visit was climate protection.
Sigmar Gabriel outlined: "With regard to climate protection a new thinking has emerged in China. China wants to actively contribute to halting climate change and is investing heavily in environmental technologies. We must speed up our action if we do not want to lose our leading position in environmental technologies". In Minister Gabriel's view the positions of the Chinese and the German government on major climate negotiation issues are much closer than expected.
During his visit to Beijing Minister Gabriel met high-ranking Chinese government representatives, among them Xie Zhenhua, the President's Special Representative on Climate Change and Vice Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, Zhou Shengxian, the Minister of Environmental Protection, Wan Gang, the Minister of Science and Technology and Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Zhang Zhijun.
Talks with Minister Wan concentrated on the state of development of electric vehicles. Both in China and in Germany comprehensive trials are being prepared in order to gain practical experience in this area. Minister Gabriel stressed that the integration of renewable energies into electric mobility will be decisive for a positive climate impact. Both sides agreed on close cooperation between the German Ministry for the Environment and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology. Within the framework of a multi-annual cooperation projects in which BMW, Volkswagen, Bosch, Siemens and the Tonji University in Shanghai are to participate, infrastructural issues and areas such as intelligent control of power grids and storage aspects will be tackled.
Sigmar Gabriel agreed new projects with the Chinese Minister of Environmental Protection on chemicals safety, electronic scrap and water management.
Topics such as water protection, clean air, waste management, sustainable energy use and electric mobility were in the centre of the 3rd Sino-German Environment Forum in Foshan, in China's southern Guangdong province. The Forum was opened by Michael Müller, Parliamentary State Secretary of the Federal Environment Ministry.