China's speedy urbanization has urged the government to take on a low-carbon approach, to kick off the green transformation of its urban development as part of the country's 12th five-year planning from 2011 to 2015.
It is forecast that up to 75 percent of the population in China will live in cities by 2050, a significant rise from the 44.9 percent in 2007. This will further the tension between the demand and supply of resources, and overstretch the accommodating capacity of the environment, says a recent report on China's low-carbon and eco-city development strategies.
Embracing low-carbon city model, which will lead to energy, industrial and lifestyle revolution, is the only way for Chinese cities to achieve sustainable growth, the report which was issued by the Chinese Society for Urban Studies points out.
China's aggregated CO2 emissions will keep growing until 2040, if China doesn't implement energy-saving and emissions-cutting measures, or only acts less vigorously, or only works for restructuring industrial setup to reduce the share of heavy industrials of the whole economy, says the report.
"Only adopting a low-carbon path, China is able to check the growth of its emissions 10 years ahead, namely by 2035," the report says.
Beijing has been called on to demonstrate low-carbon city development as a city suitable for living, to address the challenges it faces in population, transport, energy and the environment.
On the other hand, Beijing International Institute for Urban Development says that groups of cities will boom as urban agglomeration during the coming few years, to further the advancement of regional economic growth.
There is no doubt about the contribution of cities to China's development. China's top ten big cities in total are home to over 1/3 of the country's population, cover 11 percent of the country's areas and contribute to 2/3 of the country's GDP.
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