German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited the Institute of Atmospheric Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Beijing on Thursday, where he called for further bilateral cooperation on mitigating climate change.
The president arrived in China early Tuesday morning for a five-day state visit, at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, marking his first state visit to China in eight years.
After his first stop in Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province, he continued his trip in Beijing, with meteorological collaboration among his agenda items.
During his visit to the institute, Steinmeier was briefed on the academy's development in recent years, heard a progress report on the Max Planck–CAS Joint International Center for Climate Change and Carbon Neutrality, a reputable China-Germany academic collaboration project, and inspected the institute's flagship 325-meter-tall meteorological observation tower on site.
After descending from the world's only mega meteorological observation tower located in a metropolitan center, the president stressed the importance of further China-Germany cooperation on environmental studies.
"We are looking back to a long-time collaboration and to continue, because regarding climate change, it's necessary that we are cooperating with all our skills on both sides," said the president.
As a flagship platform for atmospheric boundary layer and urban environment research in China, the tower has been in operation since 1979, benefiting Chinese and global researchers. Key parameterization schemes developed from observations at the Beijing 325-meter Meteorological Tower have been incorporated into global meteorological models.
German President visits Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Beijing
