Event reports
On the 14th of August 2012 the KAS organised a workshop in cooperation with the UNEP-Tongji Institute, which focused on urbanisation, demographic change and the fight against climate change in China and Germany.
The event, which was organised together with the UNEP Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development (IESD) at the Tongji University, took place within the framework of a study trip of a group of German KAS scholarship holders to China. In the first Panel Prof. Dr. Wang Lan from the Institute of Urban Planning at Tongji University illustrated the growing challenges associated with urbanisation in China. The urbanisation rate in China already lies above 50% and will further increase rapidly in the future.
The economic growth, foreign direct investments, as well as systematic fostering by the central government have been the major factors behind the migration into cities.
Ímportant challenges in this context are the strong environmental pollution, the shrinking living space and social problems, such as inequality and crime.
There are various models for urban development that are discussed among Chinese experts at the moment. Besides classic solutions like the megacity and the small town model Prof. Wang also depicted new urbanisation models, such as the „eco city“ or the so called „smart city“.
Subsequently a KAS scholarship holder explained how Germany reacts to the demographic change and how German politics deals with the aging population.
Dr. Chen Rong from the Demographic Research Center of the Shanghai Family Planning Committee then illustrated which dramatic consequences the aging of the population has on Chinese society. The greatest challenges lie in solving the problem of an expected workforce shortage as well as financing the so far underdeveloped social security system.
The second part of the event focused on climate change and sustainable development. Prof. Jiang Dahe, former director of the IESD, presented the challenges and strategies to combat climate change in China. Johannes Grünhage, regional manager of the Germany Energy Center and College (GECC) in Pudong, illustrated how German technologies could contribute to decrease the high energy consumption and the CO2 emissions in China, using the example of energy efficient building. 40% of the energy consumption in China comes from construction, as there are no sufficient incentives to build in a sustainable way. This is mainly due to the fact that energy prices are still too low.