China Select Provinces and Cities into Low-Carbon Pilot Project

Low-carbon is a buzzword these days, but the notion is no longer ambiguous for cities in China as the country selects five provinces and eight cities to make them the first batch of low-carbon pilot areas.

Su Yi has the detail.

The selected areas have promised to work out a low-carbon development plan to accelerate the establishment of a low carbon industry and promote people's low-carbon lifestyles.

Lei Hongpeng, senior program officer of climate and energy programme with World Wide Fund for Nature, the world's largest conservation non-governmental organization, says the pilot project is a significant measure China has taken to deal with climate change.

"Firstly, from a global perspective, we all know climate change is one of the biggest challenges the whole world is facing, I think China is one of the big emitters and also one of the countries who is affected by climate change, so China should do some thing to tackle climate change. The second is domestic perspective; China needs to explore a way to realize its development target, at the same time with limited sources and environment."

The selected provinces are Guangdong, Liaoning, Hubei, Shaanxi and Yunnan, while the eight cities include Tianjin, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Nanchang, Guiyang and Baoding.

Lei Hongpeng explains the government's thinking behind choosing these places as the first batch of the pilot program.

"I think from provincial level, the government selected these pilots mainly base on-every area, one province or municipality is selected. For example, northeast we have Liaoning province, north China we have Tianjin municipality and so on. For the cities, I think the governments really consider about capacity and their actions in the past several years, which mean the cities can go forward further with their strong experience and knowledge on low-carbon development."

By the end of August, these provinces and cities have to submit their plan to the National Development and Reform Commission for approval.

Xu Mindong, an official from the Development and Reform Commission of Hangzhou, talks about their plan.

"Hangzhou started the preparation long ago, and we have an environmental advantage. The selected areas have their own unique features, some focus on new energy, some focus on ecological construction. Hangzhou's emphasis is on six aspects, including low carbon economy, environment, architecture, transportation and a low carbon society."

The local governments in those areas have to manage to establish a data gathering system of greenhouse gas emissions, while combining the efforts of all their industries to achieve the goal of maintaining a low-carbon society.

For CRI, Im Su Yi.