MEP Vice Minister Pan Yue met with the visiting U.S. delegation of mayors of sustainable development and green cities on September 8. Both sides exchanged views on environmental issues of common concern.

Pan Yue warmly welcomed the delegation for their visit. He introduced the country's environmental situation, the environmental policies China advocated for the moment and the achievements of recent years in environmental protection. Pan Yue said, China made world impressive economic success in the industrialization and urbanization process, but it also accumulated serious environmental problems. Chinese Government has already realized that GDP growth alone is not the solution to all problems and it has to take a road towards comprehensive, balanced and sustainable development, which is also the trend in the international community. For the moment, the country is going through a big change in the awareness and practice of environmental protection and enters a new development phase, which has yielded new results.

Pan Yue introduced the Ministry's pioneering measures related to the environmental impact assessment, disclose of environmental information, and public participation in environment field. For the reduction of CO₂ emissions, a concern of the delegation members, Pan Yue insisted that, first, the industrialized western countries had major responsibility for all the carbon emissions so far in history; second, as the end-users of the biggest energy market, developed western countries should also be responsible for pollution caused by the imported products and services they now consume. As a responsible country, China has always paid close attention to climate change and done a lot for addressing it. For example, China has developed more policies and regimes for climate change, established a national leading group for addressing climate change, energy saving and emissions reduction, which is headed by Premier Wen Jiabao, developed the CDM guidance and management systems, and formulated and implemented a series of policy measures for saving energy and reducing energy consumption. China is doing its best to cut down CO₂ emissions and make its due contributions to addressing climate change-the global issue by implementing the scientific outlook on development, shifting the economic growth pattern, taking a new road towards industrialization, and vigorously promoting technical advances.

U.S. delegation appreciated the country's efforts and leap-forward progress in protecting the environment and hoped that both sides would communicate and cooperate more, share the experience in environmental protection, and promote the development of environmental protection cause.

Members of the delegation are mainly mayors of U.S. cities with advanced technologies (for saving energy, improving air and water quality and traffic problems) for developing green cities.