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Gansu Party Chief, Governor Xu, Distinguished Authorities Representatives of Ministries, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to be here with you today to open this fine new building, home to the UNIDO International Solar Energy Centre, which I had the honour to inaugurate three years ago. We are now on the countdown to the Conference of the Parties for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will be held in Copenhagen in December. So let me reflect a little on Climate Change. Climate Change is the greatest challenge of our time. Right now, we must take every step to conserve energy, and to use it more efficiently. But at the same time, we must build up our renewable energy sector. Because in the not-too distant future, we must be ready to stop powering our societies with fossil fuels, and have them run on renewable energy. Every country, rich or poor, North or South, will have to do this, although the paths to reach this goal will differ. China’s Government has realized that the future lies with renewable energy. It also recognizes that adoption of renewable energy gives it greater energy security. In February 2005 the National Peoples’s Congress adopted a far-reaching Renewable Energy Law. The law requires that by 2020 renewable energy technologies should be in large scale commercial use, with renewable energy accounting for over 18% of China’s total primary energy consumption. As a result, the country is pushing forward aggressively in this sector. Its presence in the small hydropower the country is pushing forward aggressively in this sector. Its presence in the small hydropower sector is already strong, and its share of the wind and solar sectors is growing rapidly. For its part, knowing that industry is a significant user of energy, particularly in countries like China that are rapidly industrializing, UNIDO is strongly promoting the uptake by industry of more energy efficient technologies and operating practices. It is also supporting enterprises to use on-site renewable energy technologies such as solar and small hydropower. But let’s also remind ourselves that in many of the poorer countries of the world, the problem is not too much energy, it is too little. Their populations lack access to modern forms of energy, whether powered by fossil fuels or renewable. This is a primary cause of their poverty. So UNIDO is strongly promoting the development and transfer to these countries of appropriate small-scale renewable energy technologies, and their sustainable operation through linkages to productive, income-generating uses. Therefore, UNIDO strongly supports the efforts of China’s Government in the field of renewable energies. We are particularly keen to work with China to disseminate to other developing countries its knowledge and technology in the renewable energy field. UNIDO is already cooperating with the International Centre on Small Hydro Power in Hangzhou. This Centre has contributed to the transfer of small hydropower technology from China to other developing countries for several years already. With the International Solar Energy Centre, UNIDO aims to do the same: disseminate to other developing countries the appropriate knowledge and technologies which this centre in particular and China in general has already developed. In this way, in the spirit of South-South cooperation, China can assist other developing countries find their path to economic development powered by renewable energy. Thank you. | ||
| ·last page：Address at the Completion Ceremony of ISEC-UNIDO Headquarter Building by Prof. XI Wenhua，Director-General of UNIDO Internatioanl Solar Energy Center | ||
| ·next page：Address on the Ceremony of ISEC-UNIDO Headquarters Building Completion by Mr. LIU Yongfu, Governor of Gansu Provincial People’s Government | ||
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