Good morning ladies and gentlemen.

On behalf of the United Nations Development Programme in China, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have been working efficiently on this project, environmentally friendly city initiative.

I am quite confident that this project will help SEPB to build capacities in the design and implementation of an environmental index system that meet international standards, raise public attention on the importance of pollution control and natural resources management, and also facilitate stronger partnership for achievement of the plans and goals. As the UN’s largest provider of grant assistance in the area of energy and environment, UNDP would like to fully support this project’s implementation.

Several months ago, before the opening of the Beijing Olympics, UNDP and the entire UN system join forces with the Beijing Olympic Committee and the Beijing Environment Protection Bureau to launch a new fleet of clean energy buses to help achieve China’s goal of a Green Olympics. This is meant to help China achieve its goal of a "Green, Scientific, and Humanistic Olympic Games". We were very glad to witness the success of 2008 Olympics and also are willing to contribute significantly to the great success of 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

The strategy of this programme, the Environmentally Friendly City Initiatives (EFC), is to develop an integrated and structured environmental monitoring system to track and improve achievement of goals set out in the Three-year Action Plan, Five-year Master Plan and MDG 7. EFC will introduce best practices, techniques, and approached to help strengthen environmental management and decision-making processes. Through identification, development and integration of new environmental management systems, EFC will assist Shanghai become an internationally recognized environmentally friendly city by 2010.

UNDP Global Partnership for Principal 10 initiative underlines the importance of access to information and participation in decision-making process that will have impacts on the environment. With the movement of Shanghai towards a sustainable city, environmental policy processes will increasingly become an important issue in the years to come. The increasingly educated populous will demand improved access to information, participation and remedy. The Environmentally Friendly City Initiatives (EFC) project will support activities to strengthen the monitoring of improvements in access to information and participation within the overall index system.

Apart from helping to achieve the EFCI system, we seek to use the World Expo as a platform for raising awareness of the general public on the options for environment protection and sustainable development in China. The issue of environment protection has hit a tipping point over the past years, receiving wide attention in the world’s media and rising to the top of the political and economic agenda in China itself. Through broader awareness raising and policy dialogue activities under the programme, it is expected that the new project can lead to the further development and deployment by the local Government.

Ladies and gentlemen, through the support of GEF and other funding sources, UNDP has provided over $3 billion over the past decade globally in the area of environmental protection, climate change and sustainable energy. Through our presence in 170 countries around the world, UNDP support programmes that help countries find win-win solutions to challenges of economic development and environmental protection.

In China, as a long-term partner of the government, UNDP focuses on bringing in best practices for policy formulation, bringing together public and private partners for technology transfer and mobilizing finance, and supporting capacity building activities to improve levels of local compliance with national goals and targets. China now stands at a critical juncture in the goal of addressing environment protection. UNDP and the entire UN stand ready to support China in this endeavor.

We applaud the efforts of the Shanghai Government to use the platform of the World Expo as an opportunity to demonstrate the progress of Shanghai toward an environmentally friendly city as well as the collaboration between Shanghai and its partners.

Again, we wish China a wonderful World Expo in 2010. We look forward to cooperating for these and other activities over the following months, and for continuing our important cooperation in the area of environmental protection in the future.

Together we can make a difference! 

Thank you.