This book summarizes experiences from the World Bank s activities related to low-carbon urban development in China. It highlights the need for low-carbon city development and presents details on specific sector-level experiences and lessons, a framework for action, and financing opportunities.
This book considers the impact of global climate change, advocating to promote sustainable development from the perspective of low carbon and climate resilience, by reducing carbon emissions in different aspects of urban and regional development. As the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, China is continuously exploring a sustainable path to achieve the momentous goal of 2060 carbon neutrality. In addition, this book reviews and summarizes China's green development and predicts the transformation of China's carbon emission and energy structure before and after the peak of carbon emission in 2030. It examines the role of governance in decarbonization efforts, focusing on decision making processes, policies and regulations, as well as the significance of regions, cities, and communities. This book highlights typical methods of implementing and achieving low carbon development in light of China's practical situation, which helps to resolve some of the problems that may arise in achieving the carbon neutral goal. Therefore, this book is suitable for the reference of scholars in low-carbon environment science, sustainable urban development, and other related fields. It also provides inspiration for China's medium and long-term sustainable development plans in the future.
Sustainable Urbanism in China explores the notion of "Sustainable Urbanism" by considering the role sustainable neighborhood planning plays in the larger picture of sustainable urbanism and suggests innovations and best practices that are either developed or adopted by China. These are narrated as lessons learnt for other countries where we see similar trends of development patterns or emerging practices. Through various explorations of challenges, paradigms, and innovations of urban sustainability, this book highlights how planning, policy, and design are forming and reforming in the context of China. These are offered through a set of guidelines and pathways for urban sustainability at the scale of neighborhoods/communities or districts in a wider context of urban environments, as well as strategies for planners, developers, policy makers, and educators in the field of the built environment. Through a comprehensive overview of urban sustainability practices in China, this book investigates 12 case study projects. These comprehensive explorations should in turn help construct the future directions of China’s sustainable urban development and provide innovative pathways of sustainable urbanism in China and around the globe.
In China, as the 'Internet of Things' and cloud-computing have been widely used in various areas, the concept of an intelligent city quickly became one of the most exciting topics in urban development. Various institutes and organizations (e.g., National Technology Department, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences) proposed their ideas on how to build intelligent cities in China. This idea has tremendous benefits to modern China. China needs to construct its own intelligent cities in order to realize an economic transformation (from extensive to intensive, from low end to high end, and from follower to leader), an industry upgrade, as well as transformation in city development. Secondly, an intelligent city is also an important new approach to boost China's economy since the traditional economic forms-such as real estate, automobiles, and import and export-are currently in a downtrend. Most importantly, utilizing high-tech methods can help build low-carbon cities. According to estimates, by building intelligent cities China will be able to increase the efficiency of energy saving and emission reduction by 30%-40%. In order to facilitate the healthy development of intelligent cities in China, build the competitive advantage of Chinese cities in the world, and respond to the high demand for information on this idea, this book discusses in detail the status, current problems, perspectives and methods of the development of the 'Intelligent City' in China. [Subject: Asian Studies, Environmental Studies]
This book provides the latest knowledge and practice in responding to the challenge of climate change in cities. Case studies focus on topics such as New Orleans in the context of a fragile environment, a framework to include poverty in the cities and climate change discussion, and measuring the impact of GHG emissions.
In the last 30 years, China’s record economic growth lifted half a billion people out of poverty, with rapid urbanization providing abundant labor, cheap land, and good infrastructure. While China has avoided some of the common ills of urbanization, strains are showing as inefficient land development leads to urban sprawl and ghost towns, pollution threatens people’s health, and farmland and water resources are becoming scarce. With China’s urban population projected to rise to about one billion – or close to 70 percent of the country’s population – by 2030, China’s leaders are seeking a more coordinated urbanization process. Urban China is a joint research report by a team from the World Bank and the Development Research Center of China’s State Council which was established to address the challenges and opportunities of urbanization in China and to help China forge a new model of urbanization. The report takes as its point of departure the conviction that China's urbanization can become more efficient, inclusive, and sustainable. However, it stresses that achieving this vision will require strong support from both government and the markets for policy reforms in a number of area. The report proposes six main areas for reform: first, amending land management institutions to foster more efficient land use, denser cities, modernized agriculture, and more equitable wealth distribution; second, adjusting the hukou household registration system to increase labor mobility and provide urban migrant workers equal access to a common standard of public services; third, placing urban finances on a more sustainable footing while fostering financial discipline among local governments; fourth, improving urban planning to enhance connectivity and encourage scale and agglomeration economies; fifth, reducing environmental pressures through more efficient resource management; and sixth, improving governance at the local level.
Urban transport efficiency and environmental sustainability present big challenges for city leaders and policy think tanks. As the share of the world's population living in cities grows to nearly 70% between now and 2050, energy consumption for urban transport is forecast to double, and there will be tremendous strain on the built environment and infrastructure for transport, electricity and communications. This book presents a cohesive work on the policy principles and practical applications to drive urban mobility services in tomorrow's smart cities. Taking the global view of the interactions between land use and transport, this book brings together leading experts in the areas of urban planning, transport planning and strategy, traffic management and transport technology to present a cohesive work on the policy principles and practical applications to drive urban mobility services in tomorrow's smart cities. Containing practical policy instruments and proven use cases, this book combines academic rigor with practical tools to benefit practitioners and city leaders. Topics covered include policy principles for low carbon mobility; low carbon mobility and reducing automobile dependence; integrated land-use and transport planning for future cities; decarbonising suburban mobility; public transport for the urban millennium; impacts on public health; active transport, health and wellbeing; mobility and the sharing economy; autonomous shared mobility; gamification and sustainable mobility; and digital innovations and disruptive mobility.
Debates about the future of urban development in many countries have been increasingly influenced by discussions of smart cities. Despite numerous examples of this "urban labelling" phenomenon, we know surprisingly little about so-called smart cities. This book provides a preliminary critical discussion of some of the more important aspects of smart cities. Its primary focus is on the experience of some designated smart cities, with a view to problematizing a range of elements that supposedly characterize this new urban form. It also questions some of the underlying assumptions and contradictions hidden within the concept.
This open access book introduces a multi-disciplinary and comprehensive research on China's long-term low-carbon emission strategies and pathways. After comprehensively considering Chinas own socioeconomic conditions, policy design, energy mix, and other macro-development trends and needs, the research team has proposed suggestions on Chinas low-carbon development strategies and pathways until 2050, with required technologies and policies in order to realize the goals of building a great modern socialist country and a beautiful China. These achievements are in conjunction with the climate goals set in the Paris Agreement alongside Global Sustainable Development. The authors hope that the research findings can serve as a reference for all sectors of Chinese society in their climate research efforts, offer support for the formulation and implementation of chinas national low-carbon development strategies and policies, and help the world to better understand Chinas story in the general trend of global green and low-carbon development.
The book discusses the concept of the smart city, and is based on a multi-service and multi-sectoral approach to urban planning, including various urban functions and the human capital of cities. The work is divided into three parts. The first is an introductory section which covers definitions, policies and tools used at European level for the development and classification of a smart city. The second presents a selection of examples of Western and Eastern communities, which experienced technologies and strategies that have made them smart. The third describes in detail the main three possible approaches (economical, technological and social) to the smart city concept which are the focus ambits of the holistic concept of smart city. The work provides a good overview of the concept of smart city, and also offers a critical analysis of the various approaches to smart cities, in order to provide tools to develop solutions that address the smart development of cities with an approach as multi-sectoral as possible. Its accessible language and several examples make the book easy to read and appealing to public administrators, students, planners and researchers.