JEDDAH, 18 May 2008 — A two-year executive program for cooperation between Arab countries and China kicked off in Jeddah yesterday with a three-day workshop on “Hazardous and Solid Wastes Management” at the Conference Palace.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People’s Republic of China, the Secretariat of League of Arab States and Saudi Arabia jointly organized the program. The program aims to boost environmental cooperation between China and Arab countries and foster talent exchanges in the field of environmental capacity on both sides.
Director General of the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment and President of the Executive Office for the Arab Ministerial Council responsible for Environmental Affairs Prince Turki ibn Nasser said that the program prepare a framework for exchange of Chinese experts with Arab countries to work in hazardous and solid waste management.
He said Arab states need to adopt cleaner production policies and build capability in the field of hazardous waste management from the perspective of the 4R initiative for dealing with waste (Reduction-Reuse-Recycle-Recovery). “The ideal use of natural resources and making greater use of waste is the only way to achieving sustainable economic growth,” he said.
He added that developed countries and some third world developing countries were moving away from the waste treatment approach and toward waste prevention.
At the 2nd Ministerial meeting of Chinese-Arab Cooperation Forum in 2006, Chinese Minister of State for Environmental Protection Administration Zhou Shenxian and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa signed a joint communiqué on environmental cooperation. The implementation plan will be signed at the ministerial meeting of the China-Arab Cooperation Forum, scheduled for May 22 in Manama, Bahrain.
Arab League representative Fatima Al-Malah, who pointed out achievements in the Arab world in the field of waste management, said that the league was also on the verge of establishing an Arab environmental facility that would serve as a nucleus for international and regional financial aid to confront environmental issues in the region.
“Frankly speaking,” she added, “what has been achieved so far does not meet the goals set in the Johannesburg Plan of implementation or the ambitions of the Arab initiative.” She added that the Arab world faced a number of obstacles, such as the shortage and pollution of water, limitation of fertile lands, random consumption of natural resources, the expansion of modern urban areas and its aftermath in addition to deteriorating conditions of the sea and coastal areas.
She added that all efforts would fail to achieve a sensible improvement on the ground unless there were an atmosphere of peace and security, a commitment to international law, political justice and implementation of the UN resolutions on the conflict areas in the region.
The Arab world faces exceptional challenges of instability and conflicts which, she said, “are contributing to the deterioration of natural resources, pollution, human suffering, poverty and poor living conditions.” She added that these are more than the existing Arab environmental facilities can handle.
Xu Qinghua, director general of the International Cooperation Department at the Chinese Ministry of Environment Protection, who briefed the audience on latest developments in China’s environmental polices, said, “China, like all Arab countries, has now ushered in a brand new stage of development, as it embarks on the efforts to build a well-off society in an all-round way.”
He added that to address the conflict between rapid economic growth and the pressure on resources and environment the Chinese government proposed to optimize economic growth by environmental development and achieve three new transformations. First, overstressing economic growth against environmental protection and paying equal attention to both.
Second, the transformation from environmental protecting lagging behind economic development into synchronized advances of environmental protection and economic development. Third, transformation from mainly relying on administrative instruments to protect the environment into using legal, economic and technical means combined with mandatory administrative measures to address environmental problems.
It was not until 2008 that Chinese government approved the establishment of a Ministry of Environmental Protection.
China will hold the third training program for Arab countries on environmental management in Beijing from June 12 to 26, focusing on the protection and management of ecological environment.
“We hope to intensify cooperation with Arab countries in such fields as capacity building in environmental protection, environmental policy management and green technologies, lifting cooperation to a new height,” the minister added.
