Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

It is my pleasant task to address this important meeting today to convey the congratulations of the Government of Germany and in particular of the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development to China and the City of Chang Chun on occasion of the celebration of the International Ozone Day 2006.

Stratospheric Ozone Layer Protection continues to be the most successful strategy to fix one of humanity's greatest self inflicted problems. The Montreal Protocol is in many respects a spectacular success worldwide and especially in China .

Today we are celebrating the 12 th International Ozone Day. On this auspicious occasion, we should not only commemorate and be content with past successes but also develop visions to overcome the next challenges.

We hear ever more news on ozone holes in the Southern and now also in the Northern hemispheres as well as the increasing scientific certainty on global warming. This should give all of us pause to wonder what humanity can do to regain control of the situation.

The so far achieved successes of the Montreal Protocol can only serve to focus our sights beyond these events to the next challenges.

One of these is achieving the freeze on consumption of HCFCs by 1 January 2016 . In order to achieve this freeze and unlike any other ozone depleting substance in the past, the still permitted increase in HCFC production and consumption has to be slowed. Otherwise an overshooting of the freeze and therefore non-compliance for China cannot be avoided.

Side by side with ozone protection is the other the major environmental challenge of climate protection. One possibility to deal with the HCFC challenge is to utilize both the Montreal and Kyoto environmental agreements in this regards:

• Step wise final phase out of HCFC 22 production capacity in view of and in order to comply with the 2016 freeze date.

• Registering the final phase out of HCFC-22 production capacity as a CDM project for complete abatement of the by product HFC-23 with its extreme global warming potential.

This would combine two very important controlled substances under two of the most important international environmental agreements:

The Montreal Protocol's last group of ozone depleting gases, HCFCs, and at the same time one of the Kyoto Protocol's most damaging gases could thus be addressed in the most sustainable way by simply eliminating production capacity.

It becomes increasingly clear that developing and marketing ozone and climate friendly technologies, including and especially those based on natural gases, is economically advantageous and provides additional energy savings. Clearly, it is in China 's interest to take notice.

During the next 20 years China will become one of the major economic and political powers. It will be to the China 's and the whole world's benefit if this can be done on the merits of sustainable technology.

Today, China is already leading the cause of ozone protection among developing countries. I believe China is also on the best way to become a world leader in other clean technologies.