On November 4th, the 2018 Future Consensus Forum: Next Civilized City and Sustainable Development was held in Beijing. The forum was co-developed by Tsinghua University Global Sustainability Development Goal Research Institute ("Tsinghua SDG Research Institute") and Korean Yeosijae Future Consensus Institute ("Yeosijae"), and the CBCGDF representatives were invited to participate.

Former UN Secretary-General, President of Boao Forum for Asia, Mr. Ban Ki-moon; former UN Under-Secretary-General, Tsinghua SDG Research Institute Co-Chief Mr. Wu Hongbo; former UNESCO Director-General Ms. Irina Georgieva Bokova; International Automobile Federation President Jean Todt, as well as presidents from many universities, such as Tsinghua University, Yonsei University, and Pohang University of Science and Technology, as well as politicians, scholars, and business representatives attended the event.

The CBCGDF representative introduced Mr. Ban Ki-Moon to our work, and said that there are currently Koreans joining the volunteers team. He said: "Including Chinese and Korean youth, the younger generation all over the world is the main force of sustainable development."

As the eighth UN Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon's priority is to mobilize world leaders to address many new global challenges, climate change and economic turmoil, epidemics and growing food, energy and water-related pressure. During his tenure as Secretary-General, one of Ban Ki-Moon’s first major initiatives was the 2007 Climate Change Summit and extensive diplomatic efforts, since then he helped bring this issue to the forefront of the global agenda. Subsequent efforts had been focused on the world’s main goal of poverty alleviation, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), which had resulted in more than $60 billion in pledges, with special emphasis on Africa and the new global women’s and children’s health strategy. In 2008, during the peak of the food, energy and economic crisis, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon successfully called on the G20 to provide developing countries with a $1 trillion financing plan and other measures to guide the international community to respond to vulnerable groups.

At the opening ceremony, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon made a keynote speech on “Sustainable World to Create a New Civilized City”. He said that the Earth is calling for human awakening and determination. In order to solve the unsustainable problem, UN is constantly striving. This is a challenge to deal with the biggest problem facing all mankind. China is a country capable of fulfilling this fearless challenge. China should dominate the dream of a new civilized city.

Sustainable urban development in the future is one of the important goals of the UN 2030 agenda. Modern accelerated urbanization brings unsustainable development dilemmas such as overcapacity, excessive environmental consumption, inadequate infrastructure and services, as well as high cost of living. How the global cities will overcome the predicament and move towards harmonious and stable development will become the main reform and development direction of the future city.

The concept of “new civilized city” is different from urbanization in the era of industrialization. It emphasizes how to deal with the greatest difficulties faced by human beings at this stage – the unsustainable crisis, and how to seek a more comfortable lifestyle for human beings in the city, in order to create new values of civilization.

(Photo: CBCGDF)

Original Chinese article:

http://www.cbcgdf.org/NewsShow/4854/6654.html

By / Shuya