Gwangju City and Leipzig City of Germany Cooperate to Build Carbon Neutral Cities

Mayor Lee Yong-seop Holds Video Conference with Mayor Burckhardt Jung

Sharing and Cooperating on AI-Green New Deal Policies... Agree to Expand Friendly Relations

On the afternoon of the 3rd, Lee Yong-seop, Mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City, held a video conference with Burkhardt Jung, Mayor of Leipzig, Germany, in the city hall business room to discuss cooperation measures between the two cities regarding COVID-19 response strategies and Green New Deal policies. Photo by Gwangju Metropolitan City

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City and Leipzig, Germany have agreed to jointly cooperate in creating a carbon-neutral city.

On the afternoon of the 3rd, Mayor Lee Yong-seop held a one-hour video conference with Burkhardt Jung, Mayor of Leipzig, Germany, in the city hall business room, discussing cooperation plans across various fields such as COVID-19 response strategies, the Green New Deal policy, economy, culture, and human rights.

Mayor Lee explained the cooperation plans with Germany that had been discussed previously with former German Chancellor Schr?der and German Ambassador Raifenschulte, stating, “Gwangju aims to become a carbon-neutral energy self-sufficient city by 2045 and is accelerating its AI-Green New Deal initiatives. Since Germany and the European Union have already established and are implementing climate response plans ahead of us, we hope Leipzig will share its know-how.”

He also said, “This year, due to the COVID-19 situation, the 40th anniversary ceremony of the May 18 Democratic Uprising and the 10th World Human Rights Cities Forum were held in a scaled-down and non-face-to-face manner. Next year, at the World Human Rights Cities Forum held in Gwangju, we plan to add a ‘Korea-Germany Human Rights Conference’ program, and we hope Leipzig, which led German reunification, will participate as a main partner. We also plan to invite Mayor Burkhardt Jung to next year’s May 18 commemorative ceremony.”

In response, Burkhardt Jung, Mayor of Leipzig, said, “Gwangju’s AI-Green New Deal plan aims to create a carbon-neutral city by 2045, which is five years ahead of Germany’s carbon neutrality plan targeting 2050. I hope the two cities will share policies in the AI-Green New Deal field and actively cooperate to achieve positive results.”

He added, “Since Leipzig and Gwangju signed a friendship agreement in 2012, we have cooperated in various ways in culture and arts. Leipzig and Gwangju are representative democratic and human rights cities of Germany and South Korea, respectively, and we should further strengthen our cooperative relationship going forward.”

Meanwhile, since signing the friendship agreement in 2012, Gwangju and Leipzig have continued mutual visits and exchanges. This year, they shared local government response measures post-COVID through a video conference with Gwangju’s overseas sister and friendship cities.

Next year, plans include mutual exchanges between municipal art museums and participation of Gwangju media artists in Leipzig’s Festival of Lights.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.