Report of the Short-term Expert (Senior)
Prof. Dr. Peter Schmuck
Interdisciplinary Center of
Sustainable Development
University Göttingen
Goldschmidtstr. 1
37077 Göttingen
Speaker and Advisor for the “EU-China Youth Forum
on Sustainable Development, Xi’an, 4-11 July 2011”
Agenda and context of the event
At the 12th EU-China summit, held in Nanjing on 30
November 2009, leaders from
both sides agreed on launching 2011 as the “Europe-China Year of Youth”.
The planned and ongoing exchanges and cooperation
among young people, youth
leaders and youth organisations aim
to promote dialogue, mutual tolerance,
intercultural awareness and solidarity beyond borders.
A joint action plan has been developed in close
cooperation between the European
Commission and the All China Youth Federation, and in
consultation with youth
representatives from Europe and China.
The joint action plan includes a variety of activities
divided into the following main
categories: high visibility flagship events in Europe and China,
partnership projects,
development of a policy dialogue in the youth field and on
youth-related issues in
other areas, media and publicity activities.
One of the flagship events to be supported also by the
EU-China Policy Dialogues
Support Facility (PDSF) is the “EU-China Youth Forum
on Sustainable Development”
which will be held in Xi’an, 4-11 July 2011.
Participants
200 youth leaders, 50% from
EU and China, respectively.
Contribution
Working groups
I took part as active participant in the
working group on „green creativity“ and gave inputs
about creativity research, sustainable development and German experiences in
„green creativity“.
The summary of the workshop indicates central results.
Results
Mutual information: There were many
opportunities for the European participants during the week to see cultural
interesting places in Beijing and Xi´an and to meet people during the
excursions. However, the information opportunities for the official Chinese
participants about European views and experiences were restricted, because most
of them were present in Xi´an only two days.
Discussions: There have been many
fruitful and interesting discussions, mainly between European participants,
regarding the topics of the week. Discussions with Chinese participants have
been restricted to few time windows, for instance after my presentation and
during the workshops.
Presentation: I got very positive
feedback regarding my presentation from many European participants (“makes
hope”, “shows, that sustainability projects are possible”, “interesting, colourful”). A Chinese student initiative group “China Shanxi
University Media Union” invited me to give presentations at their university
later on. Some Chinese participants doubted the validity of my arguments
against the use of nuclear power, but the (not broadly known) fact that several
countries finish the use of nuclear energy was finally seen as support of my
arguments.
Göttingen, 20 July 2011
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Peter Schmuck