Speaker: Mr. Domingo Jiménez-Beltrán, Director of the Spanish Observatory for Sustainability and former Executive Director of Director General of the European Environment Agency

World Expos focus on global issues, and it can also be said that they are more concerned with the issue of sustainable development.

World Expos are exhibitions of sustainable development themselves, so their themes should reflect the spirit of sustainable development. Each of the World Expos has made some progress, and we should turn the concepts of sustainable development into reality at the World Expo site, scoring progress in the year when Expos are hosted and reaping rewards on sustainable development. We should stick to such philosophy and take the issue of sustainable development into consideration in hosting the World Expo until its conclusion and the demolition of the Expo pavilions.

We should continue to advance in the road towards sustainable development. We should let the world know about this through the hosting of World Expos. It could be said that World Expos in general have raised the issue of sustainable development, and World Expos have done a lot of work in combination with advanced science and technology, whether during the World Expo held in Daejeon of South Korea or in Hanover of Germany. We have reached consensus on many problems being discussed, although there is seemingly much delay in concrete actions. The theme of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo is much broader and all encompassing, and the UN has also made objectives for the Shanghai World Expo. Over the past 15 years, we have seen widening gap between rich and poor, and this is gradually becoming a more and more serious problem. At present, given that cities are becoming bigger and bigger, how should we bring benefits to people when a large number of people are moving to cities? Is it possible for everybody to enjoy the benefits? Can we guarantee the sustainable development of mid-sized cities? The chaotic expansions of cities into suburbs trigger problems concerning the proper use of national land resources, and the migration of people also implicates a host of factors. In order to achieve“Better City, Better Life”, we should put forward objectives, and specify future directions. We are now only half way at best in the road towards sustainable development, and there is still a long way to go. We still have much work to do in terms of social, economic and environmental levels.

Speaker: Ms. Outi Onkatukia, OECD Coordinator for Sustainable Development

I have been working with OECD for over a decade, mainly specializing in issues regarding sustainable development.

Globalization is now progressing at a fast pace, and the liberalization of investment and trade will impact environmental protection. We have reached consensus on these problems, so we could solve them through joint efforts. The solution to environmental protection is neither contradictory nor alienable to the rise in economic powers. In addition, we should also take into account the development strength of particular regions, as different countries have different needs, and the interests of different countries are also not the same. Therefore, I want to propose three principles with respect to sustainable development:

Firstly, we should achieve sustainable development in communities. To this end, we should first of all have good governance, which is a long-term target. We should pay more attention to the historical and cultural heritages of each region, making these regions more charming in light of these heritages. The city of Shanghai has its own unique urban features. Secondly, the reconstruction of cities should be in tandem with sustainable development, and we should boost the glamour of our cities against the backdrop of all-round sustainable development, including the infrastructure construction of cities. Thirdly, we should build environment-friendly cities. What we need are constructions that are friendly and hospital to residents, and we should not only initiate physical and objective constructions, but also constructions of thoughts and mindsets.

Shanghai is the first city to add“city”into the theme of World Expos, which will enhance our understanding of cities. Urbanization is now developing at a faster pace, and the importance of cities has been raised to a much higher level. In addition, the Shanghai World Expo will be hosted in a developing country, so we should pay our attention to the Shanghai World Expo starting from its preparation, hosting through the conclusion. .

Speaker: Mr. Mats Andersson, Senior Urban Management Specialist of the World Bank

The World Bank and the city of Shanghai have had many cooperative programs over the past few years, among which the protection of urban environment is a case in point. Although our specialty is finance, we are more concerned with the overall development of Shanghai since it is a big city.

Shanghai is a large city with a population of over 20 millions, and cities stand for economic concentration, a power of scale, namely, people work to create economic values via construction. Among noteworthy issues, I don’t think sustainable development should be neglected. We should leave rooms to satisfy the needs of sustainable development, and we should protect and make better use of infrastructure facilities. Sustainable development means foresights and predictions for future changes.

As for the Shanghai World Expo, I think the most important point is the sustainable development of cities. Shanghai is a city full of vigor and vitality; the GDP per capita is also relatively high and the city has strong fiscal revenue streams. All these mean that the city can protect environment effectively to guarantee sustainable development. Given the economic development potential, strong fiscal revenue, the protection of living environment, increasing social solidarity, and the management of the whole city, I believe that the Shanghai World Expo will live up to our expectations.

Speaker: Zhu Dajian, professor of the School of Economics and Management at Tongji University, Professor and Head of Department of Management Science and Engineering, Executive Director of the Center for Sustainable Development Study, Deputy Dean of the Institute for Urban Development and Management.

Sustainable development has been elevated to a major issue for World Expos since 1990s. We could easily discern the importance of the concept of“sustainable development”in the development of World Expos, judging from the themes of World Expos held recently.

The current problem is to integrate the development of cities with sustainability to create an influential guiding principle for the World Expo that will impact the development of cities in the 21st century. This should be a challenging task for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. The sustainable development of cities should pay attention to the following three aspects:

1) The pace of urbanization. Over a half of the global population now live in cities, therefore the issue of urbanization should be a core project in the study of the development of human beings. China is currently faced with such an issue.

2) The quality of urbanization. Cities are the major living places for human beings. Questions such as how to enhance living conditions and improve the environment will be permanent topics for the sustainable development of cities.

3) The ability in pushing forward the process of urbanization. Cities are the centers of reform and innovation, and they are also the places to reflect national justice and participation of people in government affairs. We should mainly look at these two respects in judging whether cities can development sustainably or not.

World Expos can shed lights on the sustainable development of cities from the following three fronts. Firstly, it is on the target of urban development. Currently many cities only focus upon the development of local economy in cities, neglecting the quality of life. We need to coordinate the economic development of cities with the quality of life through enacting broad and comprehensive development blueprints and appraisal systems.

Secondly, with respect to the capitals for urban development, the development of each city follows the path of‘investment—circulation—output’, therefore the development of eco-economy is also an important issue. A sustainably developing city should possess the feature that the economic and social development can be achieved without high energy consumption and heavy pollutions. The traditional development modes did not separate these two aspects, while a sustainably developing city should take the separation of these two aspects as its indicator in development.

Thirdly, with respect to the ability in urban development, governments, enterprises and citizens should be partners in achieving sustainable development. Not only should the governments and enterprises play their roles in sustainable development, more and more citizens should be allowed to participate in this process in order to turn cities into those that are“beneficial to the life of people, develop with the support of people.”We still have a long way to go in this respect.