Political, business heavyweights ponder path for Asia's 'green recovery'
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With Asia leading the global economic recovery, political and business heavyweights in and outside the continent gathered Saturday to ponder ways to a "green recovery" in post-crisis adaptation.
"Green recovery" from the worst global economic downturn since the 1930s dominated discussions at this year's Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) annual conference at the coastal town in south China's island province of Hainan.
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping said Asia, now a major engine behind world economic recovery, had learned lessons from the two severe financial crises in the late 1990s and over the past two years.
"We must further improve the development model, and seek a path of green and sustainable development," Xi told some 2,000 political and business heavyweights and experts from Asia and around the world.
Asia has huge potential for reducing energy consumption and improving energy efficiency, although it lagged far behind the world's advanced levels in the aspect, Xi said in a keynote speech at the opening ceremony.
With the theme of "Green Recovery: Asia's Realistic Choice for Sustainable Growth," this year's session focuses on practical solutions that improves livability and use "green growth" to improve livelihood opportunities and enhance people's living standards.
The Chinese leader urged Asian nations to quicken low-carbon technology development, promote energy efficient technologies and raise the proportion of new and renewable energies in the energy mix.
Xi said the nations should also promote a conservation culture and raise awareness for green development, green consumption and a green lifestyle.
East Asian economy was forecast to expand by 8.7 percent this year "supported by a recovery in global demand and capital inflows, growth in consumer spending and sustained stimulus," the World Bank said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the Asia-Pacific region has become the world's largest emission source of carbon dioxide, with its emission amount accounting for half of the world's total, according to a report on the integration of Asian economies, issued during the BFA meeting.
But its per capita emission is only about a quarter of the world's average, the report said.
GREEN RECOVERY CHALLENGING
While Asia's recovery has been a major bright spot in the world over the past year, the nations should jointly work to reinforce foundation for economic recovery and gradually alleviate reliance on conventional, unsustainable development pattern, observers say.
Fidel Ramos, former Filipino president and outgoing chairman of BFA's board of directors, said all Asian nations should explore different ways on the way to recovery to ensure sustainable growth.
The nations should strive to achieve green recovery no matter how painful the economic transformation is, Ramos told the meeting of the BFA, which is billed as an Asian equivalent to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Multiple technologies, instead of "just one or two technological developments," are needed to address energy use in complex systems including housing, urban development, transportation and agriculture, Ramos earlier wrote in the official publication for the BFA's annual meeting.
For Mongolia, one of the major challenges is to transform an economy with substantial national resources into a green one, said Mongolian Prime Minister Sukhbaataryn Batbold.
Batbold said Mongolia will increase green investment in mining, railway and building sectors and use more environment-friendly technologies.
But he said the country is facing a dilemma of development as Mongolia needs decades to get rid of dependence on fossil fuels.
An additional investment of more than 10 trillion U.S. dollars is predicted to be used globally by 2030 to combat climate change, which means each country must invest one percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in this regard, Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen told the opening ceremony.
Par Ostberg, senior vice president of the Volvo Group, wrote on an official publication of the BFA annual meeting that "at the juncture of the economic recovery, Volvo has harvested rich returns from green technology inputs."
Xi urged developed countries to help facilitate technological transfer and share related technologies on the basis of intellectual property protection.
Emphasizing the importance of regional cooperation in achieving green growth, Afghan Second Vice President Mohammad Karim Khalili said Asian people, socially and culturally linked to each other, should jointly work to address common challenges.
