Expo Puts Low-carbon Ideas to Work

By staff reporter ZHANG HONG

ON August 10, 2010, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) launched an experimental project to build low-carbon provinces and cities. The first batch of participants encompasses five provinces – Guangdong, Liaoning, Hubei, Shaanxi and Yunnan – and eight cities – Shenzhen, Xiamen, Tianjin, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Nanchang, Guiyang and Baoding. These areas are required to develop a low-carbon development plan, fostering a green economy, lifestyle and consumption pattern. But how can they achieve this without any precedents to follow? The Shanghai Expo might provide inspiration.

Save Your Legs, Save the Planet

Baosteel Stage in the Expo Park is converted from an old factory building.

The Expo Park boasts over 300 pavilions, representing individual countries, cities, enterprises and international organizations. Assuming you spent 10 hours a day here, with just half an hour in each pavilion, without any waiting in line or refreshment breaks, you'd still be doing the rounds two weeks later. And who has that much energy?

The new-energy vehicles running through the site would be a big help, getting visitors to any pavilion within a few minutes. The Expo's green transportation fleet includes the newly unveiled extended-range electric vehicle – the Chevrolet Volt. Drawing on its 16-kWh lithium-ion battery, the Volt can be driven for 64 emission-free kilometers.

Besides international brands, China has over 1,000 homegrown "zero emission" new-energy vehicles serving the Expo, including about 300 powered by electricity and super-capacitors and 200 by fuel cells.

The Expo organizers also issued the Green Commuting Guidelines, using which tourists can find a green Expo-visit plan that best suits their particular needs. An online calculator allows them to figure out their personal carbon emissions for a trip by entering basic information such as start and end locations, travel methods and the number of people. Also they are able to "offset" their carbon emissions by purchasing a low-carbon travel card at RMB 40, half of the cost going to funding non-profit environmental protection projects.

Low-carbon Penetration

Shanghai has grown into China's largest industrial base and an international metropolis since it opened to foreign trade more than 100 years ago. The industrial and commercial boom brought it immense prosperity and but tremendous pressure on its environment at the same time.

A report jointly published at the end of 2009 by Bayer Group, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and China's Tongji University pointed out that Shanghai is now No.1 in total carbon emissions among the four major Asia-Pacific cities, with its carbon emissions per unit of GDP three times that of the other three, namely Tokyo, Bangkok and Sydney.

In fact, Shanghai has been working strenuously to clean its air and clear its name. Since 2000 when preparation for the Expo started, the city has scaled up its financial allocation for environmental protection. The 2009 investment reached RMB 42 billion (US $6 billion), triple that of 2000. Now the World Expo gives Shanghai a chance to demonstrate to the world its will and potential for green growth.