The original edition of the "European Charter for Solar Energy in Architecture and Urban Planning" emerged in 1996 out of the 4th conference for Solar Energy and was published, in view of the worldwide discussion on climate change, new and in ten languages. The text, composed predominantly by Munich architect Thomas Herzog with many renowned architects as signatories, serves as a challenge, or respectively, a voluntary commitment to resource-saving building and to widespread utilisation of reusable energy. The fact that roughly half the CO2 emissions in the world today occur in the field of urban planning bear witness to the urgency of rethinking how cities should be built. This topic will be a focal point of the next World's Fair in 2010 in Shanghai where the European Charter will communicate important fundamentals for discussion not only for professional circles but also for the general public worldwide. AUTHOR: Thomas Herzog is one of the world's leading architects and is internationally renowned as a pioneer of ecological and energy conscious building and as one of the foremost innovators of building design. For Herzog the use of solar energy is a design principle, which stimulates his to develop innovative architectural forms *
