Climate Group Urges Chinese Cities to Promote Low Carbon Economy
With the Copenhagen Summit on the horizon, environmental organizations and leaders are hard at work to develop a viable multilateral framework for climate policy coordination. In their January 2009 release of a new report: “China’s Low Carbon Leadership in Cities”, the Climate Group has distilled the goal down from a national to municipal context, highlighting the critical role that local government can play in establishing and promoting low carbon strategies for economic development in China’s cities.
The report, published in Chinese, highlights case studies of exemplary leadership in low carbon development in 12 Chinese cities - including innovation and deployment of solar energy, LED lighting, and electric cars technology - in what appears to be a rally cry for support from China’s power base and attempt to broaden understanding of the issue. The tone of the report is set out in its first paragraph: all countries should be viewed as equals, and developing countries’ policy choices for tomorrow shall be given equal respect as the advances that industrialized countries have already made in this area.
Why cities? The report’s Executive Summary argues that cities, responsible for a higher proportion of global greenhouse gas emissions than the percentage of the world’s population they support, have a responsibility to lead the way in addressing climate change issues. It also refers to energy insecurity and a heightened threat of natural disasters as two results of climate change that particularly affect cities.
