Greetings from Chinese NGOs: Huanying lai Tianjin! Welcome to Tianjin!

5 October 2010

The meeting this week in Tianjin is the first UN climate conference in China. We, the Chinese NGOs, want to give guests from around the world the warmest welcome and wish you all a pleasant stay in the city. Although Tianjin is a city famous for its local comedians, we hereby kindly ask the delegates to take this session seriously – please don’t turn it into a joke.

The climate conference in Tianjin is a historic event: the first opportunity for us to collectively present to the world our true grassroots climate change movement in China. In the run-up to the Tianjin conference more than 40 leading environmental NGOs synergized their individual initiatives and spared no effort in creating a full programme of Chinese NGO activities. We have prepared and are proud to present a package with many goodies called ‘Green China – Race to the Future’.

On Monday, many of you witnessed the opening ceremony at the Chinese Great Climate Wall with UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres. Some of you might have participated in the CCAN side event on impacts of climate change and the side event by the Beijing-based GEI on sustainable rural energy.

Besides the side events you can find in the Daily Programme, we have organized a series of events in the Meijiangnan International Club, a venue about 10 minutes walk from the Meijiang Center across the Youyi Road. The events include dialogue between different NGOs, presentations of Chinese NGO campaigns, and initiatives from the private sector.

The full programme of activities and a map how to get to the venue is available in the Meijiang conference center. You can also walk up to the Chinese NGO stands in the entrance and ask NGO colleagues directly for more information.

Among these activities, we particularly want to highlight the official launch and press conference of the Chinese NGO
position on climate change on Wednesday morning. It is a unique chance for the
international community to get to know Chinese NGO colleagues better and learn how we see the challenge raised by the climate change and what we want on this issue. We strongly encourage you to make good use of this opportunity, and we look forward to meeting you soon!