Antarctic Forum Roundtable: Inspirations from Antarctica was successfully held in Guiyang International Eco Convention Center as a formal sub-forum of Eco Forum Global 2013 in Guiyang. Mr. Jeffrey Sachs, the Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Adviser to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan made an opening speech.

Mr. Wu Jianmin , the academician of the European Academy of Sciences ; Great diplomat ; Former China Ambassador to France, made a speech of” Inspiration from the cooperation in Antarctic Treaty for nowadays”; Mr. Kuo Way , known as the President and University Distinguished Professor of the City University of Hong Kong , a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, an elected member of the United States National Academies of Engineering adn Academia Sinica in Taiwan and International Academy for Quality, made a themed speech about back ground radiations .

Former Director of China News Service Mr. Guo Zhaojin; Counselor of the China State Council; Former Chief Economist of Asian Development Bank Mr. Tang Min; Deputy Director of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Columbia University Mr. Arthur L. Lerner-Lam and Professor Yuan Xiaojun and other professionals attended the Roundtable. The Roundtable topics are widely touched upon and profoundly discussed on current political, economical, polar science and climate change etc. A few agreements and consensus were reached on the topics of well preserve and protect Antarctica.

The director of Guizhou Province Weather bureau Zhao Guangzhong and director of Guiyang city weather bureau Jin Jiande were also invited and attended the Roundtable.

The Antarctic spirit stands for a win-win situation through collaborating among countries, said Mr. Wu Jianmin, Antarctic Treaty, which was signed in 1959, is still instructive nowadays. Shelving differences and seeking joint development is essential to build up the common interests for all the countries. He also shared his own thoughts through the very first hand experience himself:

First of all, common interest of all human is above all. That could be considered as one of the reasons for these signatory countries entered Antarctic Treaty when the world is in the fastigium of cold war. Antarctic Treaty which was signed for peaceful purpose only, connected countries holding different opinions with the common yet highest interest of all the human beings.

Secondly, pursuing peace is the eternal theme. Seeking for international cooperation is vigorous that it is a common sense nowadays for all the parties that Antarctica will never be used and occupied for military purpose. It is hard to imagine without Antarctic Treaty what Antarctica would be now if the nuclear tests were brought to Antarctica back to 1950’s. Pursuing peace is essential for human to preserve the only pure land as well as to preserve our common interests.

Thirdly, protect our environment is also very important. We can’t live without fresh water while Antarctic continent contains 70% of earth fresh water. Antarctic Treaty is actually preserving the precious water resource for our offspring from pollution.

Lastly, history always repeats itself when it comes to territory war. Antarctic Treaty set a rational and objective way of settle disputes with holding and freezing up the problem when it is difficult to be settled.

Jeffrey Sachs mentioned in his opening speech that even though Antarctica is the only continent doesn't have habitat population and covered by ice and snow all year around, it is very important for all the countries and human. It plays an essential role of slowing down the global climate change and preserving the global ecological system on earth. He also made a brief introduction of UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. The network aims at building an international network and providing all sorts of supports to scientists as well as to the efforts of conserving global eco system.
 

Kuo Way began his speech with the Fukushima radiation crisis caused by tsunami in Japan 2011. According to Professor Kuo, there are ionization radiation and non- ionization radiation depending on its different kinetic energy. Ionizing radiation is generally harmful and potentially lethal to living things but can have health benefits in radiation therapy for the treatment of cancer and thyrotoxicosis. He also talked about atmospheric haze. Haze are normally cause by burning coal which also has radiation pollution. The research results indicated 70% of worlds energy source are related to coal, oil and nature gas and the emission of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and the radiation from coal are harmful for human health and big number of people who worked in coal mining area died from these reasons every year.
 

Eco Forum Global Annual conference Guiyang 2013 was successfully held from July 19^th to July 21^st.The theme of this year was “Building Eco-Civilization: Green Transformation and Transition”. Over 2100 guests attended and “Guiyang Consensus” was announced.