China the Rise of the Green City: China's Rapid Urbanisation Is Cause for Concern, but Remarkable Initiatives in Cities Such as Rizhao, Wuhan and Beijing Are Leading to a Broader Endorsement of Sustainability Principles

Levinson, Matthew, Chen, Jing, Ecos

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Look across the rooftops and walls of Rizhao, a coastal city of nearly three million on the Shandong Peninsula in China's north-east, and you will see rows of solar panels on nearly every building. The traffic signals and street and park lights downtown are powered by photovoltaic solar cells, and virtually all the city's residents use solar energy for their hot water.

Per capita incomes in this small Chinese city are even lower than most other cities in the region, but Rizhao's response to sustainability has been far from ordinary.

CSIRO's Xuemei Bai, who covered the initiative in 'State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future', an annual report published by the World Watch Institute, says the remarkable achievement resulted from a meeting of three factors: 'A government policy that encourages solar energy use and financially supports research and development, local solar panel industries that seized the opportunity and improved their products, and the strong political will of the city's leadership to adopt it.'

While solar power has been promoted in industrial countries …

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Publication information: Article title: China the Rise of the Green City: China's Rapid Urbanisation Is Cause for Concern, but Remarkable Initiatives in Cities Such as Rizhao, Wuhan and Beijing Are Leading to a Broader Endorsement of Sustainability Principles. Contributors: Levinson, Matthew - Author, Chen, Jing - Author. Magazine title: Ecos. Issue: 142 Publication date: April-May 2008. Page number: 8+. © 1999 CSIRO Publishing. COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale Group.

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