Environment ministers from 16 East Asian countries agreed here yesterday that creating environmentally-sustainable cities should be the first goal in addressing the problems of rapidly growing urbanisation, pollution and climate change.
The meeting brought to fruition an initiative made by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung at the East Asian Summit in Singapore last year. The outcome of the East Asia Summit on Livable Cities in June in Singapore will be used as input for sharing experiences.
The meeting also built a base for co-operation on environmental protection and to make the East Asian region environmentally sustainable, said Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai.
According to Hai, in recent years, many East Asian countries have suffered heavy losses of lives and property in natural disasters, which many blame on climate change and environmental degradation.
The ministers used the opportunity to share their opinions and policies on many environmental subjects, said Pham Khoi Nguyen, Viet Nam’s Minister of Natural Resources and Environment.
They shared experiences on urbanisation and industrialisation to help in the push for appropriate urban-development policies.
A statement released after the meeting said ministers had agreed that environmentally-sustainable cities should be the priority in addressing the problems of rapidly growing urbanisation.
They said this would contribute to addressing related issues on climate change, energy and the environment.
Ministers said they appreciated ongoing and new initiatives promoted by member countries, such as a low-carbon society, compact cities, eco-cities, environmentally sustainable transport, the Clean Asia initiative, Asia 3R (reduce, re-use and recycle) forum, water-environment partnership in Asia - and the Asian universities’ network titled Prosper.net.
The ministers reaffirmed their commitment to stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would prevent dangerous interference with the climate system.
They reiterated their commitment to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol as the core international mechanisms for addressing climate change.
The ministers noted Viet Nam’s concept paper for setting up a regional centre for environmental education. They agreed that this was a useful initiative and asked senior officials to study the proposal further.