CHINA'S ECOLOGICAL CIVILIZATION - A GAME CHANGER: BELONG FORUM SIDE EVENT AT COP 21
"Toward Ecological Civilization Policy Document"
Himalayan Consensus Institute has been advising China on its transition away from carbon toward renewable and efficient energy. Himalayan Consensus has also advised on a shift from reliance on GDP as a measurement of economic growth toward more comprehensive measurements of economic health.
Himalayan Consensus founder Laurence Brahm together with board member Chris Brown have served as advisors to China's Ministry of Environmental Protection under a European Union Dialogue facility in drafting "Toward Constructing Ecological Civilisation" a document that was adopted by China's powerful CCP Central Committee and State Council on April 25, 2015. The policy decision calls for massive investments into renewable and efficient energy, red lines protecting delicate bio-diversity zones, and promotion of conservation over consumption as national values.
The efforts of Himalayan Consensus were supported in principle by former Premier Zhu Rongji who was an outspoken advocate of environmental protection and reforestation, under whose leadership China became a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol. His daughter Zhu Yanlai was instrumental in the formation of the Toward Construction Ecological Civilisation policy document and as a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference has been a powerful voice in advocating the shift toward renewable energy and a new growth matrix.
"Towards Ecological Civilisation" represents a major change in China's industrial, energy and environmental policy that led to the Belong Forum hosting the first official COP21 side event in Beijing on September 24, 2015 as an opening in the run-up to COP21 in Paris.
