Environmental and climate change is regarded as an important issue by quite a few meetings and forums of ASEM, such as the Leader Conference, the Environment Ministers' Meeting, the Science and Technology Ministers' Meeting, the Finance Ministers’ Meeting, the Senior Official's Meeting on Environment, etc.. On this issue, the governments of ASEM members are policy makers and supervisors of policy implementation, and enterprises are the executors of environment protection and green-house gas emission reduction. Considering the important role of enterprises, the Asia-Europe Business Forum has always been paying much attention to the issue of environmental and climate change.

China has always been an active initiator and supporter to ASEM’s cooperative activities on environmental and climate change. The first ASEM Environment Ministers' Meeting, for example, was held in Beijing in January 2002 under the initiation and promotion of China.

On the meetings of ASEM’s different forums, the main topics related to the issue of environmental and climate change include water resource protection, influence of climate change, utilization of clean energy, development of new energy, desertification combating, forest degradation, emission and exposure of chemicals, urban environment, bio-safety, coast and ocean protection, species diversity, cleaner production technology, environment policy and legislation, poverty alleviation and sustainable economic development, etc..

ASEM has already reached the following consensus on the basic principles of environment protection and climate change cooperation. Firstly, it is emphasized that the ultimate goals, principles and commitments of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol provide the foundation for ASEM’s cooperation in this field. Secondly, the cooperation should be practical, and should be carried out on the basis of an equal and comprehensive partnership. Thirdly, the issue of climate change and green-house gas emission reduction should be regarded as one of the biggest priorities of all. Fourthly, ASEM members should make great efforts to eliminate technology transfer barriers and expedite the transfer of environment protection technology, promote the development of environment industry, encourage the investment in the field of environment protection, facilitate the liquidity of environmental products, and encourage the private enterprises to make contribution to environment protection.

The activities which have also been suggested as the main fields of ASEM’s environmental cooperation in the long-run include energy cooperation, environmental education exchange program, cooperation in the field of R&D, protection of biodiversity, deforestation reduction, international cooperation on environment management, and making full use of natural resources in the world, etc..
In view of the consensus reached by ASEM on the issue of environmental and climate change, China proposes the following initiations:

Protecting environment is the joint responsibility of the human beings. Therefore, joint efforts should be made in the worldwide range to promote the cooperation on environmental and climate change, basing on the principles of fairness, justice and rationality.

Considering the active attitude on environment protection and green-house gas emission reduction taken by almost all ASEM members, the business/private sector should strongly support the implementation of ASEM’s consensus and related policies in this field. It is suggested that the issue of climate change, which also involve the adjustment of energy consumption, should be regarded as the priority of the cooperation in this field.

It is expected that ASEM’s EU members could facilitate and enlarge the export of environment protection equipments to the Asian members, and reduce and eliminate trade barriers in this sector. In fact, it will bring benefit not only to Asian countries, but also to EU and the whole world.

The EU members and ASEM’s Asian countries should enhance the cooperation among the enterprises engaged in environment protection and environmental products, through which the Asian countries could improve their environment protection technology and reduce the production cost. 

It is suggested that the cooperation among senior management executives of ASEM members’ enterprises could be strengthened, so that the management of the related Asian enterprises would be improved.

It is suggested that the enterprises of the ASEM region should enhance cooperation and improve their production technology. Meanwhile, the enterprises should make great efforts in developing new energy and extend the utilization of clean energy, so that the structure of energy consumption could be optimized.

ASEM members should enhance cooperation on human resource development, particularly on the HRD training programs related to environment protection. In this aspect, EU is expected to cultivate more technical expertise on environment protection for Asia.