BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhaunet) -- Scientists and officials stressed the importance of innovation in urban development at the Shanghai World Expo's third forum that began in Wuxi, east China's Jiangsu province, on June 20 to 21.
"Scientific and technological innovation has become the leading force in economic and social development," said Wan Gang, minister of science and technology. "As an important carrier, the city is a main gathering place of creative elements."
Urban expansion has also brought increasing use of fossil fuels over the past 200 years, giving rise to pollution, energy shortages and global climate change, Wan said.
Renewable clean energy will replace traditional fossil energy and become the main source powering future cities, he predicted.
Such innovations are also important to improve social welfare, as well as finding solutions to challenges such as food and energy security, said Supachai Panitchpakdi, secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
Participants at the forum also included Lee Tsung-Dao, Nobel Laureate in Physics in 1957, 2005 Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine Barry J. Marshall and famed Chinese agricultural scientist Yuan Longping, widely known as the "father of hybrid rice".
