Summary of City Consultation for Sustainable Project

Sustainable Shenyang Project (SSP) is a joint project between United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and People’s Republic of China. The Project Document of SSP was formally signed by the Shenyang Municipal Government (SMG) with the UNDP and the China International Center for Exchange and Technical Exchange (CICETE) in May 1997, implementation started right after. According to the ProDoc, in order to discuss and clarify the key environmental issues facing Shenyang and develop the priority actions solving these issues SMG held the City Consultation for SSP at Traders Hotel in Shenyang from 5 to 7 May 1998. More than 300 representatives from management departments, public and private enterprises, educational and scientific research institutions, news agencies, communities, UN organizations, national/provincial departments, as well as domestic/overseas friendly cities came together to discuss the significant task to achieve “Sustainable Development”.

The Municipal leaders, including Mr. Xu Wencai (Member of Provincial Standing Committee of Communist Party and Secretary of Shenyang Municipal Committee of Communist Party), Mr. Zhang Rongmao (Chief of Standing Committee of People’s Congress of Shenyang), Mr. Zhao JinCheng (Vice-Secretary of Shenyang Municipal Committee of Communist Party), Mr. Tian Fengqi (Vice-Secretary of Shenyang Municipal Committee of Communist Party), Mr. Ma Xiangdong (Member of Shenyang Municipal Standing Committee of Communist Party and Executive Vice Mayor of SMG) , Mr. Duo Jingru (Member of Shenyang Municipal Standing Committee of Communist Party and Secretary-General of Shenyang Municipal Committee of Communist Party), Mr. Gai Ruyin (Vice Mayor of SMG), Mr. Hong Jiansheng (Vice-Chairman of Shenyang Political Consultative Conference), attended the Consultation. The international friends, including Dr. Lu Lei (Programme Officer of UNDP Beijing), Mr. Chris Radford (Senior Advisor of UNCHS-SCP), Mr. Douglas McCallum (Development Management and Urban Planning Specialist), Mr. Henk Verbeek (Programme Management Officer of UNCHS Fukuoka Office), Mr. Larry Kapuska (representative from UNEP-IETC), and Mr. David Fox (representative from Leicester), as well as the leaders from the national/provincial departments, including Mr. Ding Zhongyuan (Vice-Director of National Environmental Protection Agency General Office), Mr. Zhang Jiayuan (Vice-Director of China’s Agenda 21 Management Center), Mr. Ma Aimen (Division-Chief of National Development Plan Commission), Mr. Liu Changcing (Division-Chief of National Construction Ministry), and Ms. Zhang Yiying (Programme Officer of CICETE), etc. ,also attended the Consultation.

On behalf of the Shenyang Municipal Committee of Communist Party and SMG, Mr. Xu Wencai (Member of Liaoning Provincial Standing Committee of Communist Party and Secretary of Shenyang Municipal Committee of Communist Party) extended welcome address in the opening session. Mr. Zhang Rongmao (Chief of Standing Committee of People’s Congress of Shenyang) gave mobilizing speech. Mr. Ma Xiangdong (Member of Shenyang Municipal Standing Committee of Communist Party and Executive Vice Mayor of SMG) presented keynote speech in title “Take Vigorous Action to Expand the Sustainable Development Service, and let’s Possess a Common Magnificent Prospect”. Mr. Ding Zhongyuan (Vice-Director of NEPA General Office) gave specific speech in title “Implementing Sustainable Development Is an Innovation”. Mr. Zhang Jiayuan (Vice-Director of China’s Agenda 21 Management Center) also gave a speech in the Consultation. Dr. Lu Lei (Programme Officer of UNDP Beijing) on behalf of UNDP and Mr. Chris Radford (Senior Advisor of UNHABITAT-SCP) on behave of UNHABITAT and UNEP gave speeches. In the plenary session of the Consultation, Mr. Wang Weizhong (Deputy Secretary-General of SMG) introduced the SSP overview; Mr. Shen Wenbo (Director of Shenyang Planning & Economy Commission) introduced the overview of Shenyang social & economical development; Mr. Liu Tiesheng (Director of Shenyang 1 Environmental Protection Bureau) introduced the Overview of Shenyang environmental protection & environmental issues; Mr. Xing Wenxiang (Director of Shenhe ) introduced the overview of sustainable demonstration community in Shenhe District. The representatives carefully discussed three Proposition Papers on; Controlling Water Pollution and Solving Water Shortage, Improving Air Quality in Shenyang, Environmentally Sound Disposal of Domestic Waste and Recycle which were discussed in the consultative groups of the Consultation, as well as the leaders’ speeches. The representatives reached the common agreement in the following aspects: z About the SSP

The fact that Shenyang, the largest city in the northeast part of China, was selected as the Demonstration City of SCP has great significance. By implementing the SSP, Shenyang would better learn and use innovative frameworks, experiences and approaches from other domestic/ overseas cities, expand the connection with international support organizations, attract funding from international source, and finally promote the progress of Shenyang’s sustainable development.

Beginning to implementing SSP, Shenyang did a great deal of work, such as identifying the key environmental issues, disseminating the ideas of sustainable development, and compiling “Shenyang Environmental Profile”, which became a model book for SCP. The representatives from international/national organization also suggested that SSP should expand to wider field and the experiences from Shenyang should be replicated to the cities in China as well as cities in the Asian Region. z About the Proposition Papers

The representatives considered that three environmental issues introduced in the proposition papers; “Shortage of water resource shortage and serious water pollution”, “serious air pollution caused by the structure of energy consumption with coal as the predominant source”, and “extruding domestic waste pollution”, were consistent with Shenyang’s reality as these were the key environmental issues of Shenyang’s environment and development.

“ The Proposition Papers ” analyzed accurately the reasons, causes of these environmental issues spotlighting the following factors; the structure of traditional energy relying on coal, urban distribution, industry and production which have not been adjusted properly, environmental investment which is not in pace with development, the weak urban infrastructure, the poor environmental awareness of citizens and the weak links of environmental management. Proposition papers suggested that strategies of sustainable development and environmental management should be formulated, and responsive measures should be taken as follows:

1. Planning urban distribution maintaining the city characteristics. Building macrocosmic distribution of economy in Shenyang region, devoting major efforts to develop civil economy, joint venture, rural economy and invigorating state—owned enterprises in terms of the sustainable objectives.

2. Implementing environmental protection and urban infrastructure projects. Grasping the contradictions that affect urban development and implementing key projects with more effective projection.

3. Improving the overall image of Shenyang, devoting major efforts to develop housing conditions, making further improvements on the quality of water supply, strengthening 2 central heating, developing the residential area in a comprehensive way, improving housing conditions of citizens and make further improvements on the quality and guarantee of urban life.

4. Enhancing sustainable coordination and management. Strengthening sustainable strategy planning and cross-sectoral coordination of Shenyang through the project implementation.

5. Extending communication and cooperation at home and abroad considering the following areas; industrialization of environmental projects and developing new economy, mainstreaming the project continually winning over the strong support from the related institutions in United Nations, other international organizations, national and provincial departments concerned. Establishing demonstration projects and applying for foreign fund support, utilizing and formulating policies, establishing and developing the supporting pillars of Shenyang sustainable development.

6. Strengthening the education on sustainable development to the public. Consolidating the citizens’ awareness and responsibility, promoting a balanced environment and sustainable development through extensive publicity and education. Forming a good platform through which the government pays attention to and the citizens actively participate in, setting up and continually consolidating the new image of sustainable development. z Priority measures should be taken:

In terms of the priority environmental issues, all the representatives agreed that the following measures should be taken:

1. Try every possible way to finish the water pollution treatment project on Shenyang section of Liaohe valley. Building wastewater treatment plant and increasing wastewater treatment capacity. 2. Northern wastewater treatment plant which has 400,000-ton treatment ability will be build up at the end of June in 1998, and the 100,000-ton demonstration project on southern wastewater treatment will be finished at the end of October in 1998. These will give an impetus to the development and will experiment complete sets of wastewater treatment equipment to form an industrial scale.

3. Improving the quality of water supply and supplying different water qualities according to different use. Finishing the demonstration project of different quality water supply in Tiexi district and providing 900,000 citizens with high quality water.

4. Making further development on cleaner production in industrial enterprises, implementing projects on saving water and energy, reducing amount of pollutants’ discharge and reaching the standard within a limited time. Making further dissemination of dual use pilot project.

5. Intensifying energy management. Spreading such clean energies as briquette, coal gas, liquefied gas, light diesel oil and electric power.

6. Reducing vehicular emissions. Optimizing vehicles structure, testing strictly vehicular emissions and forbidding using petroleum with lead. 3

7. Continually improving planning and construction of city green space system, strengthening greening management, increasing the area of green space, enhancing and developing the ecological function of city green space.

8. Developing the projects on sound disposal of domestic waste. Setting up southern and western domestic waste disposal sites whose disposal capacity separately exceeds 1,000 tons. The sound disposal rate of domestic waste will reach 90% before 2000.

As a conclusion through the City Consultation it was proved that governments at different levels play a very important role in sustainable development. The related departments of the government must set up responsive working groups in terms of priority environmental issues, formulate operational policies and measures which include arranging and raising certain capital, manpower and material resources, solve the major environmental problems identified according to proposed plan, set up coordinating operation mechanism suitable for sustainable strategies, draw up the strategies of sustainable development and environmental management, put forward priority investment proposals for bankable and implementable projects, do the follow-up implementation activities effectively.

Looking forward to Shenyang’s future, the representatives are full of confidence to Shenyang sustainable development and firmly believe that Shenyang must have a good future.

All the Representatives of City Consultation for SSP May 7 1998

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