Climate change is redefining industrial leadership as one that involves energy efficiency and environmental friendliness.

This is the consensus reached by nearly 70 company executives, industry observers and government officials who gathered last Wednesday at the 32nd China Daily CEO Roundtable to discuss how businesses in China can engage in climate change issues.

They concluded that foreign-funded companies in the country can play a very positive role in contributing to China’s efforts to mitigate global warming.

China's official in charge of climate change has called upon the international community to transfer technology on reasonable terms to help the country reduce its greenhouse gas emission.

Lu Xuedu, deputy director of the office of global environmental affairs in the Ministry of Science and Technology, made the appeal
at the 32nd China Daily CEO Roundtable on Wednesday in Beijing, where the main theme was climate change and China’s sustainable development.

China supports technology research related to climate change and has launched carbon capture and storage technology studies, said Lu.
“But only through international cooperation can climate be effectively protected. China will continue to cooperate with the world community to combat climate change.”

Lu said that for China, climate change is both an opportunity and a challenge, but more of the latter than the former.

Challenges include the serious effects of climate change on China and the difficulty of reducing emission because of the strong demand for energy.

Climate change is seen by many as the issue of our times. Our response will determine the kind of world we leave for our children.

Climate change, left unchecked, may kill millions and leave billions ravaged by disease and illness. Disasters like floods, droughts, heat waves and harmful air quality directly threaten human health.

The China Daily CEO roundtable demonstrated that foreign governments, international organizations and NGOs are working to ensure industrial development is sustainable in economic, social and environmental terms.

China has agreed to reduce energy consumption by 20 percent per unit of GDP by 2020. The European Union is ready to help, particularly through the EU-China Partnership on Climate Change.

BMW Group has long been working on sustainable mobility concepts, called BMW Efficient Dynamics Strategy. For the long term this is hydrogen for the medium term hybrid and at present efficient engines and hybridization. Our Hydrogen 7 is the world’s first premium sedan that runs both on hydrogen and petrol. We at BMW are also developing hybrid systems for large vehicles such as the BMW 7 Series. As for the third aspect, we have been lowering our vehicles’ fuel consumption and improving driving dynamics at the same time for years. Together with the other measures, these lower consumption, depending on the model, by up to 20 percent. In Germany alone, we have lowered BMW fleet consumption by almost 30 percent between 1990 and 2005.