Sustainable development highlighted at German-Chinese City Summit

At the centre of the discussions are topics including climate change, biodiversity protection and sustainable energy.

FRANKFURT, June 19 (Xinhua) -- Climate change poses an increasingly pressing challenge for municipal development, and representatives from over 20 Chinese and German cities have underscored the need for strengthened cooperation.

At the centre of the discussions at the first German-Chinese City Summit held here on Tuesday are topics including climate change, biodiversity protection and sustainable energy, which are of global significance for the UN Sustainable Development Goals aimed at sustainable development by 2030.

The summit was attended by over 100 government officials and business leaders from Chinese and German cities, including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Shenyang, Haikou, Qingdao, Kunming, Jinhua, Frankfurt, Mannheim, Essen, Bonn, Wuppertal, Dueren, Dietzenbach and Kelsterbach.

The cities are bonded by the China-Germany city partnerships, under which a Chinese city and its German peer become partner cities for the purpose of deepened communication and cooperation.

Chinese and German cities, provinces and states have entered into a total of 105 partnerships since 1982, Yang Wanming, president of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), disclosed in a speech at the summit.

Carbon neutrality, according to Mike Josef, mayor of Frankfurt am Main, is a challenge shared by countries across the globe, and municipalities are duty-bound. International cooperation at every level will play an increasingly important role in this regard, Josef said.

Sebastian Eich, advisor to the mayor of Dueren, a city in the Nordrhein-Westfalen state, told Xinhua that the city looks to tighten its ties with its Chinese partner city Jinhua.

The two cities have a successful student exchange program and "We are simply hoping that new momentum will come in," said Eich.

Eich unveiled that Dueren will focus more on the topic of sustainability and plans to ink an agreement with its Chinese partner next year.

It has been 25 years since Dueren and Jinhua became partner cities, and their partnership, under an agreement signed at the summit on Tuesday, has been elevated to a national level.

Manfred Ockel, mayor of the German city Kelsterbach, told Xinhua that the city partnership mechanism "works wonderfully" and it benefits both Germany and China.

Ockel sees the city summit as an opportunity for German and Chinese cities to learn from each other. "We can exchange ideas on environmental protection. We can think about how to make the world more livable."

Ockel's perspective was echoed by Thorsten Schaefer-Guembel, chair of the Management Board of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), a German enterprise owned by the Federal Republic of Germany and service provider for international cooperation for sustainable development and international educational work.

It is in the cities where the "great transformation" toward a sustainable economic model becomes concrete and tangible, said Schaefer-Guembel.

The GIZ has been taking an active part in the cooperation between Germany and China since the 1980s and it is focusing on issues with common concern such as climate change, environment protection and sustainable urban development.

"I believe it is all the more important that we set new impulses here and now: for an exchange that does not copy past forms, but looks forward with a fresh perspective and is oriented towards what is necessary and possible today", Schaefer-Guembel concluded. ■