Becoming a low-carbon city has become the latest trend as China steps up efforts to reduce its energy consumption and cut greenhouse gas emissions.
At least 100 Chinese cities have announced plans to become low-carbon cities. Lhasa's plan to build a "sun city" powered by solar electricity is the latest example of the drive. But their ambitious ideas are still on the table without any specified targets.
"China has no real low-carbon city yet," said Jiang Kequn, a researcher at the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission and an advocate for a low-carbon economy.
While cities across China are bracing themselves for a transformation to a low-carbon society, many of them have taken different approaches. In Baoding, Hebei Province, a mansion covered with solar panels has become the city's new landmark tower. In Dezhou, Shandong Province, solar-powered street lamps line the city's roads and alleys.
Jiang points out that while initiatives to build low-carbon cities should be encouraged, they are difficult to fulfill. The most popular way of building a low-carbon city involves cutting greenhouse gas emissions of buildings, transportation and industries to drive down the overall emissions of the city.
London became the first city to gain worldwide attention for its low-carbon plan, announced in 2007 by former mayor Ken Livingston. The city planned to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 60 percent by 2050.
In China, cities do not measure carbon dioxide emissions, and few have standards or monitors in place. Some industrial parks are built under a banner of using low-carbon energy, but they have been found to manufacture low-value products that consume many resources while causing pollution.
Still, officials think the interest in building a low-carbon society is better than nothing, even if little has come of it.
"Even if enthusiasm for a low-carbon city is window dressing, it is better than nothing," said Zhuang Guiyang, an official of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "At least it represents people's growing awareness of low-carbon."
Zhuang said a clear change in attitudes happened last year after the Copenhagen talks, where China promised to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 40 to 50 percent by 2020. A few years ago, Zhuang said, it was difficult to get local governments to cooperate on low-carbon projects, but since the Copenhagen conference, government officials now show great interest in them.
"Before the conference, [supporting a] low-carbon economy was political risk; after the conference, it has become an opportunity," Zhuang said.
Experts say guidance from the central government is absent. The National Development and Reform Commission worked on guidelines for the development of a low-carbon economy in March 2009 but has yet to produce a final version. Instead, China's economy planner has passed the responsibility to local governments, rolling out a pilot program in August that calls for five cities to set their own concrete targets and measures for greenhouse gas emissions.
But not all plans are necessarily good plans. Hebei Province's Huailai County recently widened its main street to 24 meters in a move to become China's first zero-carbon town. Jiang dismissed the plan as a "gimmick."
"The new road is too wide for a city with a population less than 200,000," Jiang said. "Some cities are too radical."
With no real idea of how to transform cities into low-carbon societies, the central government hopes such pilot programs will foster experiments that will eventually lead to a solution. But the cities don't always have the ideas and are used to relying on the central government for guidance. Advocates for low-carbon cities hope the target cut for greenhouse gas emissions will be written into the 12th Five-Year Plan, but even then, much work remains to map out a way to meet the target.
"Building a low-carbon city should be more a responsibility than merely paying lip service," Jiang said. "The real meaning of low-carbon city lies in improving the living environment, ensuring energy security and sharpening clean technologies."
Jiang is attending side meetings of the ongoing UN climate talks in Cancun on low-carbon cities in hopes of gaining ideas from other countries.
