On November 26, SEPA Vice Minister Li Ganjie met in SEPA headquarters with Michael Schaefer, the visiting new German Ambassador to China and his retinue. Both sides exchanged views on international cooperation, responses to climate change and other issues in the environment field.

Mr. Li firstly welcomed Mr. Schaefer for his visit and briefed on the progress of the country's environmental protection work. He said it has been a common understanding of the world countries to enhance environmental protection and promote the sustainable development of the economy. Chinese Government has always paid great attention to environmental protection. Not long ago, the 17th National Congress of the CPC placed it at a more strategic status and proposed to form the concept of ecological civilization and formulate a resource-saving and environment-friendly industrial structure, growth pattern and consumption mode. At the same time, the country has also adopted a series of measures to speed up building a resource-saving and environment-friendly society; especially in energy saving, emissions reduction, and the responses to climate change, the State Council paid close attention and printed and distributed the Integrated Work Plan for Energy Saving and Emissions Reduction and the National Climate Change Programme. So far all the tasks of relevance have been making steady progress and achieved some results.

Mr. Li stressed that the responses to the climate change needs the collective efforts of all world countries, and the developed nations should give more concerns and supports to other countries and assume the major responsibility for addressing climate change. Meanwhile, countries should actively bid for scientific and technological innovations, try to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by technical approaches, build the capacity for addressing climate change, and balance the economic development and environmental protection.

Mr. Schaefer appreciated the environmental policies developed and adopted by Chinese Government. He held that China and Germany enjoy a long history of cooperation in the environment field. He hoped that both sides intensify this cooperation, deepen the cooperation among enterprises on environmental technologies, and together promote the development of environmental cause.