Important impetus for exchange of experiences between the two countries
On 25 January 2013 220 representatives from politics, business and science discussed the framework and strategies of the green economy at the fourth Sino-German Environmental Forum in Berlin. Parliamentary State Secretary of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety Katherina Reiche and Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People's Republic of China Zhou Jian jointly opened the conference.
In her opening speech State Secretary Reiche highlighted the potential that green economy holds for both countries and commented: "We want to strengthen our cooperation and together show that an ambitious environmental policy is worthwhile". Chinese Vice-Minister for the Environment Zhou stressed that an effective political framework along with strong cooperation between the business sector and policy makers are key in successfully overcoming the challenges ahead and should be seen as an opportunity.
In his opening speech Axel Schweitzer, CEO of the ALBA group and representative of the Asian-Pacific Committee of German Business (APA), highlighted the need to considerably reduce resource consumption in China and Germany as economic progress is not possible without ecological efficiency.
The follow-up panel discussion on green economy was attended by Zhao Lijun (Poten Environmental Group), Günther Petrasch (Siemens), Professor Fu Tao (Tsinghua University) and Dr. Christoph Beier (Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit – GIZ) and dealt with current environmental and economic opportunities as well as problem areas in both countries and provided ideas for upcoming workshops.
Workshop I – Eco-labelling, environmental services and green procurement
The three above mentioned topics were dealt with from a state and businesses perspective. Representatives from the two environment ministries highlighted the importance of cooperation already in place in the areas of eco-labelling and green procurement and pledged to invest further in this cooperation. Presentations from the business sector showed that in all three areas there are considerable ecological and economical opportunities to be taken advantage of. The establishment of an environmental service sector in China in particular opens up an important market to foreign businesses. China stressed the great need for environmental technologies for establishing supply and treatment of water and waste disposal, air pollution control, soil remediation and also for analysis and measuring services. In the development specifications of the five year plan a 40 percent growth in environmental services has been planned for. There is great interest in cooperation with German businesses on the development of such services.
Workshop II – Soil pollution remediation
During the workshop presentations were given by representatives from the Federal Environment Agency and the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People's Republic of China, following this, questions regarding the origin, management and rehabilitation of contaminated sites were discussed. In Germany the issue of contaminated sites is being handled in a systematic manner. This process will also be initiated in China, whose contaminated sites, as a result of high emissions and unregulated waste disposal, must be remediated. The rapidly growing agglomeration in China urgently requires the development of land at the fringes of metropolitan areas. Possible solutions to this issue were put forward by German experts namely legislation on soil protection, the remediation of contaminated sites and also a staggered approach towards the identification of contaminated sites, which would be lower risk and more cost effective. China's representative from remediation technique firms elaborated on their approaches and experience of rehabilitating contaminated sites. The disposal of heavy metal and hydrocarbon loads that have an adverse affect on agricultural and horticultural food production is considered to be problematic. This needs to be dealt with by intelligently selecting effective remediation technologies. All in all it was shown that there is great interest on the Chinese side in exploring German legal and technological approaches towards solving the problem of contaminated sites and also reviewing whether they can be applied in China as well. Therefore, even here, there are great opportunities to strengthen Sino-German cooperation.
Workshop III – Closed-cycle management, resource efficiency and waste water management
This workshop dealt with the issues of recycling and management of waste water and sewage. Both environment ministries agreed that closed-cycle management and resource efficiency are in fact intrinsically linked: along with a lower material consumption during production it also depends on the supply of raw materials increasingly being made from recycled materials. In this context, a representative from the German business sector made a presentation on the performance of metallurgical processes, whilst the Chinese side provided information on recycling steel slags. China's main focus in relation to waste water management is to control pollution of its rivers and lakes - a goal that will not prove easy to fulfil considering the ever expanding cities putting pressure on waste water management. It was in this context that the workshop strove to come up with intelligent concepts that observe the energy efficiency of selected solutions and also the possibilities of using sewage sludge to produce energy. All in all it was shown that there are several opportunities to invest in Sino-German cooperation in all three areas and to present solutions for other countries together.
In the days following the environment forum, the business delegation of Vice-Minister Zhou Lijun visited businesses in Saxony and the TerraTec environmental trade fair in Leipzig.