Shanghai goes all-out for green
Despite now being the world’s top greenhouse gas emitter, China is going all-out to improve its sustainability with a diverse range of projects from wind farms to eco-cities to high-speed rail. And some of the leading global technology companies are working with the country to help it meet its goals.
Working with the likes of Germany-based Siemens, France’s Alstom and Bombardier of Canada, for example, China is currently building 10,000 kilometres of new high-speed railways across the nation, with another 4,600 kilometres in the planning stages. Just last month, the newest line — connecting Shanghai and Hangzhou — opened, with trains travelling up to 350 kilometres per hour. (The line broke a world record in a trial run, reaching a speed of 416 kilometres per hour.)
Shanghai, China’s largest city, this past week also finished hosting the World Expo 2010, which attracted a record 73 million visitors and put the spotlight on a variety of green and cleantech innovations from organisations around the globe. The city is also one of the 40 biggest cities being put to the sustainability test by the Carbon Disclosure Project’s new CDP Cities programme.
Shanghai could score well with the CDP, as the city has begun to implement many of the technologies and strategies that were on display during Expo 2010. Among them: a shading system used in Madrid that could help subtropical Shanghai reduce summer demand for air-conditioning, ground-source heat pumps, the use of natural insect predators to control pests and a carpool project based on one used in Bremen, Germany.
During the expo, IBM used Shanghai as the staging grounds for a series of programmes on how to create smarter cities. The gathering drew some 800 decision-makers from 180 cities across the Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas.
Shanghai was embarking upon other green projects well before the expo, although the much-touted green city within a city — Dongtan — being developed with Arup is far behind schedule. The city has also inked an eco-city partnership with Chicago, began generating power from its first offshore wind farm this summer, has launched water-saving programmes in 1,000 neighbourhoods and in September hosted the 2010 Sustainability Conference. It’s also the site of an Eco Design Fair this month.
And just this week, Shanghai-based SAIC Motor Corp. announced it would be working with General Motors to develop electric cars and components, a partnership that stands to rival a similar joint initiative by Nissan-Daimler.
