On September 3-4, 2007, the Ministerial Meeting on Environment and Sustainable Development opened in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim and Environment Minister Marina Silva co-chaired the meeting. Present at the meeting were representatives of 21 countries including France, Germany, United Kingdom, United States, Portugal, South Africa, Mexico, India and Pakistan, as well as the Executive-Director of the United Nations Environment Programme and other officials. Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui headed the Chinese delegation to participate in the meeting.

At the meeting, the participants discussed such issues as challenges for international environmental governance, strengthening cooperation for sustainable development and international environmental governance. They all agreed that in the context of the current outstanding environmental problems, it is necessary to improve the existing system of international environmental governance to better address new challenges.

In his speech delivered at the meeting, Zhang analyzed the major problems of the current international environmental governance and expounded China's basic position on strengthening cooperation for environmental governance and sustainable development.