Sino-German energy ties to reach ‘new level’

Three scientists from Germany, one from the United States and one from France have been elected to be the winner of the International Cooperation Award in Science and Technology . One of the international well known award winners is Klaus Toepfer, a German environmental-planning specialist.

“It was a very remarkable and outstanding day for me. I am most honored and extremely happy to receive this prestigious award,” said 73-year-old Toepfer on January 14, 2011 after the award ceremony. “But the award is given for what we did, and there is a challenge to do more in the future.” Toepfer worked together with China’s leading environmentalists to establish the country’s first environmental policies.

His “long and lasting love affair” with China dates back to the time when he was the federal minister for environment in Germany in the 1980s. In those days, he said, environmental issues were not very high on China’s agenda, as the country set its sights on economic development.

“China has achieved an economic miracle that people admire with its double-digit percent annual growth rate. But China, like the rest of the world, faces the same challenge: that economic development is externalizing costs on the environment,” he said. “Nobody can imagine that China will not, cannot, or should not, stop its economic development. The real challenge is: we make the need for development a reality without overburdening the capacity of the environment,” he added.

Putting green development, a low-carbon economy and energy efficiency at the heart of its 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), sent a strong signal of a paradigm shift in China’s growth model, he said. “The concept of a low-carbon economy does not mean no-economy, but another kind of economy, one that will not overload the environment and hinder economic development in the future.

“Sustainable development is a balancing act of three aspects: economic development, social justice and stability,” he said.