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