The China Pavilion at the 2010 World Expo: What does it say about the future of Chinese cities? Photo by lee_blake_somerset.

Originally posted on TheCityFix.com:

Cities in China are “becoming ever less habitable,” and their future will depend on an “urban awakening” that includes the Chinese government’s support of public participation in urban planning and decision-making, says Zhang Song, a professor at Tongji University’s College of Architecture and Urban Planning, in a two-part interview on chinadialogue.

China is a country of superlatives. It has the world’s fastest train. It uses the most energy. It even has the world’s highest cocktail bar. It’s no wonder, then, that Chinese cities are now feeling the burden of having to deal with astronomical rates of sprawl, motorization and population growth.

ALL SHOW, NO SUBSTANCE?

The “Better City, Better Life” theme of the 2010 World Expo (another superlative: the biggest world’s fair) seems to signal an urban sustainability future for China. Indeed, many of the pavilions on display (here are some pictures of the coolest ones) use modern and environmentally conscious design elements, like energy-efficient heating and cooling systems, recycled building materials, and a “green wall” (another world’s largest.)

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released a report last August to assess Shanghai’s efforts in nine key areas: air quality, transport, energy, solid waste, water, green coverage, protected areas, climate neutrality and the overall situation of the Expo Site. UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said: “The Shanghai Expo…is offering us a glimpse of a greener future.”

But only a glimpse. The UNEP report applauds many of the city’s efforts, but also outlines several key areas for improvement. This includes developing renewable energy sectors to move away from coal-powered electricity, promoting public transportation, reducing waste, cleaning up rivers, and encouraging public participation from NGOs and “green citizenship.”

Some critics have flat-out accused the Expo for being “insultingly hypocritical,” for being organized more like a utopian theme park than a true testament to sustainability. There are 192 countries and 50 organizations involved in the massive construction of pavilions, many of which won’t have any lasting benefit to the city.

Richard Brubaker, an expert on environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility, was quoted by NPR as saying, “the Expo, by its nature, is the very opposite of sustainable development,” and in a separate email to TheCityFix, he adds an important caveat: “If you are ONLY focused on the buildings. There are a number of very sustainable elements that exist, and this Expo will be the only site where up to 600,000 people will be sustained for 6 months in a sustainably designed site.” (Read more about why Brubaker thinks “this Expo should be given some green credits” on his blog, Cleaner Greener China.)

Nonetheless, the Expo does reveal China’s market-led mentality of rebuilding, rather than restoring or preserving, for the sake of maximum profit, as Zhang points out in his chinadialogue interview. “The Expo has many showy buildings,” he says, “but it doesn’t seem like any of them will become classics.”

Part of problem, Zhang says, is that many of the old factory space that used to be on the Expo site was demolished. “If that had been made full use of, perhaps things would have been simpler, or have better embodied environmental principles.”

TOWARDS AN URBAN AWAKENING

To fight its “urban disease,” China needs to focus more on human society, Zhang says. He outlines several recommendations, paraphrased below:

Preserve, don’t destroy: “Protecting and changing the use of old buildings is better for the environment and saves resources and energy – and also touches on hidden issues such as social structure.”

Be narrow-minded, at least when it comes to roads: “The marker of liveability for a city is its human scale…In Shanghai’s [major financial district], the roads are too big, the huge buildings leave people feeling alienated, the space is badly organised and living and travelling are extremely inconvenient.”

Think green: “You need to remember that greenery and landscaping aren’t just to look nice, they actually improve the ecological environment.”

Don’t be a copycat: “There is a misconception that bigger cities are better cities. But it isn’t a question of size, it’s a question of comfort, efficiency, environmental quality, liveability and, in particular, suitability for different types of people to flourish. The government needs to recognise the nature of cities, rather than treat them as a source of prestige or as a copy of other urban centres like New York”

Involve the public: “Urban planning is a social activity that citizens can get involved in….The future of the Chinese city depends on the citizens waking up, not just a few officials.“

To address continued air pollution and traffic congestion woes, Beijing is harkening back to its days as the "bicycle kingdom" and introducing policies to encourage more cycling. Photo by Dave-Gray.

According to The Guardian, 20 years ago, four out of five Beijing residents pedaled around China’s capital in some of the world’s best bike lanes.  However, this number has decreased as private car ownership has gone up. From 1995 to 2005, China’s bike fleet declined by 35 percent while private car ownership more than doubled. Beijing is currently home to four million cars. Last year, China overtook the U.S. in auto sales, with a 46 percent increase in sales over the previous year.  As cities in China have grown, bike lanes have also been eliminated to accommodate more traffic lanes for cars and buses.  By all indications, it’s seemed that Beijing was well on its way to usher in a new king – the automobile.

But is the city of 17 million ready for king car?  Perhaps not, as Beijing’s air quality continues to be poor (last week BeijingAir‘s monitoring station reported a few ‘hazardous’ air quality days). Liu Xiaoming, the director of the Municipal Communications Commission, said in a Xinhua article that the government will “revise and eliminate” regulations that discourage bicycle use and impose greater restrictions on car drivers.  Beijing already has limitations to reduce the number of vehicles on the road, continuing the odd-even license plate policy after its successful implementation during the 2008 Olympics. (And read my post about Beijing’s ban on “yellow label” vehicles here.)

The government also plans to restore bicycle lanes that were torn down, as well as to build more parking lots for bicycles at bus and subway stations to encourage additional cycling.  Also an improvement: The city will make more bikes available for rent to defray the cost of owning a bike (a new one can cost as little as $20-$40) and allay fears of bicycle theft, a rampant problem in the city. By 2015, the number of bikes for rent will total 50,000.  Today, only about 100 bicycle rental booths exist in Beijing, and owners are “cautiously optimistic” that the plans to increase rental bikes will be successful in reducing the number of cars on the road.

As a frequent cycler in Beijing, I am thrilled to see bicycles making a comeback and look forward to breathing in the benefits of these new policies.  If successful in producing the “smoother traffic” and “clearer skies” Beijing officials are hoping for, perhaps we’ll see the return of the “bicycle kingdom,” with more cities following suit with cycling as part of a sustainable transportation solution.

About the author, Angel Hsu:

I’m a Phd student at Yale University studying Chinese environmental performance measurement and policy,sustainable development, and climate change. When I’m not hitting the books, I’m probably eating … or cooking. Or both.

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Greening the Beige 3 is currently running for a week from November 21-28! This year’s festival is based around the theme “Re-energize Beijing” and features an eclectic variety of events, live performances, film screenings and community activities.

The festival kicked off yesterday with an elegant performance by Beijing Dance group LTDX and plenty of rapid-fire humor from Beijing Improv. Proceeds went to Hua-Dan, an NGO that empowers China’s migrant and rural populations through community theater projects. Starting initially in Beijing six years ago, the organization recently took its work to Sichuan, where it worked with children affected by the Wenchuan earthquake. The event also featured live and silent auctions for local green-themed artwork, and displays of some funky recycled-material transportation.

On Wednesday, swing by Napa bar for a green-themed pub quiz night, and on Thursday, the Hutong School is hosting a useful green cocktail social for those looking to improve their energy-related conversational ability.

On Friday, the festival moves to Trainspotting Cafe for a film screening and dinner event featuring the documentary film “Hope in a Changing Climate,” which will be aired globally by BBC World on the same day. The film, which documents and dramatically demonstrates how large-scale ecosystem restoration can stabilize the changing climate, catalyze sustainable agriculture, and significantly reduce poverty, will also be screened at the climate change conference in Copenhagen next month.

Finally, this Saturday GtB3 will close with a fantastic collection of events, featuring a (currently full) recycled film workshop, Pecha Kucha Beijing’s design presentations, the 3rd Annual Eco-Fashion Show, and then musical performances courtesy of Acupuncture Records.

For full details visit GtB’s website: http://www.greeningthebeige.org/gtb/

Photo courtesy of Alex Pasternack.

Our man Mark Hiew and friends John Romankiewicz (of China’s Green Beat) and Alex Pasternack (of Treehugger) called awareness to climate change on 350.org’s International Day of Climate Action on October 24 by rapping at the Roots & Shoots China Summit and Climate Action Carnival in Beijing.

From Treehugger:

…dropping green knowledge was legendary Beijing green rapper Sustainable John, of China’s Green Beat (see an old video here), accompanied by beatbox extraordinaire Huan Bao Panda (huan bao means environmental protection) and yours truly, MC ?uestration. A sampling: “we don’t carbon / we need a car ban! / if we want to go far/ man, we need a good plan.” Yep, we brought the house down, if not CO2 levels.

Hollllaaaa!

(If you’re interested, check out another post I wrote recently for TheCityFix.com about how hip-hop has changed the face of environmental advocacy: “Sustainable Cities and Hip Hop: Creating a New Urban Beat.“)

Lu Guang (??) from won the $30,000 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his documentary project “Pollution in China.” Image via ChinaHush.com.

Previously, I’ve blogged about environmental justice as a framework of looking at environmental protection and why we should act. In the past few years, a new form of environmental ethics has been gaining momentum – environmental virtue ethics (EVE). Aristotle saw moral virtue as a reflection of a certain state of character, rather than our passions or our faculties and it is this kind of virtue – a consistent, repeated, dedicated character to environmental protection that is considered a environmental virtue ethic.

Ronald Sandler and Peter S. Wenz say that acting virtuously for the environment would mean manifesting a combination of both human-centered values and non-human centered values. An environmental virtue would allow both human life and nature to flourish, whereas acting non-virtuously would be harmful to both. For example, they argue that uncontrolled consumerism is harmful to both humans and the environment; any short-term gain is outweighed by long-term harms. To put this into visual perspective, Lu Guang’s documentary “Pollution in China” does a heart-wrenching job.

While sometimes it seems difficult to constantly act environmentally-friendly in today’s society, it is not impossible to be an environmentally virtuous person and I think China, while still economically developing in ways that are harming the environment, is also in many ways setting examples for how one would act virtuously to function in synergy with the environment, rather than merely utilizing it for personal gain.

One good example is that China’s entrepreneurs are shaping up. In this article from The Nature Conservancy, Charles Bedford talks about SEE (Society-Entrepreneurs-Ecology), an organization of wealthy entrepreneurs who want to help the environment.

From Bedford’s post:

SEE, quite simply, is a club of like-minded entrepreneurs with a commitment to support the government’s environmental agenda by funding local NGOs that also embrace that agenda and that are committed to principles of “cooperation” and “win-win” solutions. They have raised and spent millions of dollars. They have grant cycles and annually give out over 70 prestigious (and monetary) awards for good works in the field that meet their criteria. SEE acts like a cross between a foundation and a country club — members pony up a certain amount every year and participate in the grant-making and awards decisions in what can only be described as a very garrulous democracy.

In other words, these entrepreneurs have found a way to be consistently dedicated to environmental protection. Also, the reasoning behind the creation of SEE is something people who are more “pro-economy” do not understand (everyone might seem green these days, but this is not completely always the case): Pollution will only harm the environment and the economy. This also reiterates the reasoning behind environmental virtue ethics.

Another way in which China could be an example to other countries is rooted in the habits of its citizens. The 2009  Greendex survey showed that China ranked third in terms of environmentally friendly consumer behavior. Chinese citizens drink boiled tap water instead of bottled water, use bikes for transportation more often than cars (China scoring highest overall in the transportation category), and practice energy-saving activities when it comes to housing.

Of course, China is still very much a coal-guzzling economy. Due to the massive amounts of coal found within China’s borders, this might not change anytime soon. Also, as China still has a ways to go before being fully “developed,” consumption is likely to increase.

In no way am I saying that China is perfect when it comes to being environmentally friendly, but in order to establish what an environmental virtue would be, it is useful to examine those activities that might lead to virtuous states of character. Aspects of China’s economic growth show that capitalism and environmental protection are not mutually exclusive and can even be mutually beneficial – electric bikes and scooters, solar power, reducing the use of plastic bags. I have noticed a recent wave of praise from the Western media for China’s environmental policies (i.e. Thomas Friedman’s The New Sputnik, or this GOOD magazine article about Chinese solar.) These are productive not because they are pats on the back for China, but as a model of environmentally virtuous acts for other countries to take note of. Criticism should motivate China, but praise should motivate other countries.

Baihua Lake, China. Image via the International Wushu Federation.

I’ve recently found two stories about environmental NGOs in China directly taking a stance against the government to improve environmental policy.

The first is a landmark case in which a court accepted a lawsuit brought on by a charitable organization, The All-China Environment Federation. They are suing the government for allowing the construction of a ice cream workshop in Baihua Lake, a beautiful scenic area. This article is reported in both English and Chinese. Also, the China Environmental Law Blog has a good article on it.

The second concerns The Green Volunteer League asking the Ministry to reconsider its recent punishment of two hydropower projects in the Jinshajiang River in southwest China. The NGO is requesting that the Ministry also halt the construction of two hydroelectric power plants in addition to stopping construction of the dams (China Daily).

Both of these stories have undetermined endings, but I’m hoping they’ll end in favor of the environment. I also hope that I will see more and more stories about NGOs standing up for environmental protection.

The six videos were produced in partnership with theWarehouse, a media program of the journalism school at Shantou University. They tell stories of Chinese entrepreneurs that have developed “innovative business solutions to China’s biggest environmental challenges.”

• Beijing Kingbo Biotech produces an organic pesticide line with ingredients sourced from a sustainably managed plantation in Inner Mongolia.
• Beijing Sinen En-Tech uses micro-filtration technology in an industrial steam boiler that recycles and reuses water in a way that saves energy and reduces carbon dioxide emissions.
• Tianzhong Electromechanical sources and re-manufacturers used photocopiers to conserve resources.
• Beijing Shengchang develops biomass technology that is cleaner than coal and also allows local farmers to receive additional income.
• Duo Ou is a paper and pulp manufacturer that uses a special process to reduce water use and pollution.

Watch all of these videos on the official Web site or on WRI’s YouTube channel.

And check out “behind-the-scenes” interviews here:

Energy and Climate Change

July 18, 2009 – July 19, 2009

Beijing, China

Hosts:
Tsinghua University Student Green Association
Peking University CDM Club
China Youth Climate Action Network

To learn more, visit the official Web site:

http://www.iysecc.org/en/index.html

Executive Summary

The International Youth Summit on Energy and Climate Change (IYSECC) will bring together 300 Chinese and international students from over 35 universities around the world. It is the first international youth conference in the field of energy and climate change to be held in China. As part of the Energy Crossroads “Our-Opportunity” 2009 global summit series, it is the first international youth conference to be organized in the field of energy and climate change in China. The forum will be held on July 18-19, 2009 at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.

IYSECC has received formal support from the Chinese Development and Reform Commission. Our advisory board members include:

• Su Wei, Director of Department of Climate Change, NDRC
• Jiang Jiasi, Chairperson of Peking University Environment Fund
• He Jiankun, Director of School of Public Policy & Management, Tsinghua University

Our confirmed speakers include:

• Jiang Kejun, Director, Energy System Research Office, Energy Research Institute, NDRC
• Qin Dahe, Former Director, the China Meteorological Administration
• Liu Xiaowei, Deputy Director of External Affairs, Shell

In addition, representatives from the Climate Group, WWF, Vestas and McKinsey will also share their thoughts at the Summit.
Our media partner include:

1. CCTV Energy Channel
2. China5E.com
3. China Environment News

As the co-host, Energy Channel of CCTV.com will provide our sponsor media support during the whole process, including:

1. Report of enterprises during the conference. The interview will be broadcasted on CCTV.com and available for one
2. year.
3. Conference live on CCTV.com
4. Report of the conference broadcasted in CCTV channels.
5. On-line promotion. Sponsors will be able to choose put advertisements on the website of Energy Channel of
6. CCTV.com.
7. Special interview of enterprises in CCTV’s studio: the interview can be broadcasted on CCTV.com or CCTV channels.

IYSECC is an ideal opportunity to further your commitment to social responsibility and build up the brand image among the best and brightest youth in the field of energy and climate change!

We invite you to participate in the conference as a keynote speaker, sponsor, panelist, workshop facilitator, to receive branding and advertising opportunities throughout the Summit. Please see the following page for sponsorship opportunities. IYSECC looks forward to working with you to bring together youth from China and around the world to take action on climate change and energy.

Disruptive Green Innovation

New Ventures China 2009 Forum

July 24th, 2009
Beijing, China

For more information and to register:

http://www.new-ventures.org.cn/forum2009/intro_en.html

INVITATION

The World Resources Institute and the DAO Institute of Environment and Development cordially invite you to the New Ventures China Disruptive Green Innovation Forum on July 24th, 2009.

The global financial crisis has transformed the life values of people. These days, most people are simply focused on their economic survival as they feverously scrutinize the latest fluctuations in the real estate and stock markets. For too many, concern for the most pressing environmental issues like climate change has become relegated to an easily forgotten newspaper story. This “I care only about my economic well-being” mentality is dangerous as the old Chinese adage teaches us – “with the skin gone, what can the hair adhere to – nothing can exist without its base.” Our survival is dependent on only one base – the environment.

For those of us who are as concerned about our economic well-being as much as the environment – where is the skin and where is the hair? Yes – money should be earned but only in a way that benefits the environment and society. We believe the answer lies on the fate of innovative small Chinese green business – whether these firms, in the aftermath of the financial crisis, can deliver desperately needed environmental and social benefits to China by becoming excellent businesses and profitable investment opportunities.

The New Ventures China Disruptive Green Innovation Forum is set to help further answer this question. At this unique event, six outstanding innovative green Chinese firms will engage with leaders from the environment, businesses and investor communities on how their firms can be drivers of a sustainable economic development model for China. As important, they will demonstrate their business and investment value, as well as new job creation potential.

We look forward to seeing you at this important event!
———————————————————————————————————————–

Disruptive Green Innovation Forum Agenda

Key Note Address

• “In the Aftermath of the Financial Crisis: Why Green Matters Even More”
• Jonathan Lash, President of the World Resources Institute

Featured Companies

• Greening the Brown: advanced industrial waste-treatment systems that reduce energy and water use
• Conserving the Money Tree: environmentally-friendly wood manufacturing systems and products that reduce hardwood forest harvest
• Profitable Technology Rejuvenation: technologies that extend the lives of hi-tech office equipment and reduce e-waste disposal
• More Profit with the Wind: advanced automated control system solutions that improve the operational efficiency and reliability of wind-power turbines
• Building Sunshine: thin-film solar cells and panels for building superstructures
• Wealth in Weeds: organic fertilizers and cosmetic products derived from an invasive plant species

On the Streets of China, Electric Bikes Are Swarming
June 14, 2009
By Austin Ramzy

In China, electric bicycles are leaving cars in the dust. Last year, Chinese bought 21 million e-bikes, compared with 9.4 million autos. While China now has about 25 million cars on the road, it has four times as many e-bikes. [Compare these staggering figures to more modest numbers from the United States, where more bicycles (2.6 million) were sold than cars and trucks (2.5 million) during the first quarter of 2009.] Thanks to government encouragement and a population well versed in riding two wheels to work, the country has become the world’s leading market for the cheap, green vehicles, helping to offset some of the harmful effects of the country’s automobile boom. Indeed, as engineers around the world scramble to create eco-friendly, plug-in electric cars, China is already ahead of the game.

But is the popularity of the e-bike in the world’s most populous country necessarily a good thing?

Read about the pros (i.e. increased mobility) and cons (i.e. lead pollution) here.