On March 25, 2008, H. E. Mr. Zhou Wenzhong, Ambassador of the People's Republic of China in the United States attended the Washington Sustainability Forum in National Press Club, and delivered a lecture entitled "Adhering to the Basic State Policy of Conserving Resources and the Environment and Enhancing the Capacity of Sustainable Development"

Ambassador Zhou stressed China has as its objectives to develop conservation culture and realize sustainable development. Conserving resources and environment is a basic state policy of China, and building a conservation culture is the common will and initiative of the Chinese people. With a total population of 1.3 billion, China is faced with a challenging task concerning resources, environment and sustainable development. This is also of great significance for sustainable development of mankind. The Chinese government and people are well aware of their mission and responsibility, and they are making relentless effort to that end.

Ambassador Zhou introduced the latest progress that China has made in environmental protection and sustainable development., including the measures to conserve energy and reduce emission, industrial restructuring process, efforts to improve the ecological environment, law enforcement and supervision, economic policy and climate change issue. Ambassador Zhou said that, the Chinese government gave prominence to building a resource-conserving and environment-friendly society in our strategy for industrialization and modernization. It has already set the goals – reducing energy consumption per unit GDP by 20%, and cutting total emission of major pollutants by 10% during the 11th five-year plan period. In 2007, China saw a 3.27 percent year-on-year drop in energy intensity for each unit of GDP. In the same period of time, emissions of sulfurdioxide and chemical-oxygen-demand (COD) began to decrease by 4.66% and 3.14% respectively from the previous year. This is an important turning point that marks the historical progress of China in resource conservation and environmental protection.

Ambassador Zhou said that, effective protection of China's environment and sound settlement of its energy issue is a contribution not only to China's sustainable development, but also to that of the world as a whole. The Chinese government takes this as its unshirkable responsibility. At the same time, we also need international support and cooperation. We welcome the U.S. government, business community and academia to further strengthen exchange and cooperation with their Chinese counterparts. We welcome you to participate in China's environmental protection and energy projects. We welcome you to conduct scientific and technological cooperation in resources, environment and energy with us. We welcome you to enhance cooperation in human resources training. We welcome you to encourage efforts to export to China advanced environmental protection and energy facilities, technologies, talent, managerial expertise and relevant investment, and therefore improve China's capacity of conserving energy and environment and achieving sustainable development.

At last, Ambassador Zhou expressed his appreciation to the audience for their care and support for China's development.

The Washington Sustainability Forum is organized by the World Environment Center. 70 attendants including representatives from federal government, multi-national companies, academician, press and diplomatic people joined in the event. The Minister-Counsellor Jin Ju and staffs from Chinese Embassy in the US attended this forum.