Sichuan: Chengdu's Low-Carbon Model Gives Rise to "Three Ones"

In the nationwide boom of developing a low-carbon economy, "low-carbon" has become a new coordinate for urban development. As one of the pioneers, how should Chengdu build a low-carbon city? Chengdu has chosen the path of building a "World Modern Garden City."

Chengdu is fully committed to breaking through the bottlenecks of "low-carbon economy" development by developing a low-carbon economy and innovating institutional mechanisms to lead low-carbon development, comprehensively promoting the construction of a low-carbon Chengdu. Chengdu has initially formed a unique path for low-carbon economic development, which is embodied in the "Three Ones," namely: building a batch of low-carbon pilot zones, formulating a low-carbon development plan, and establishing a set of low-carbon development promotion mechanisms.

Coordinating Urban-Rural Practice

Since being designated as a national pilot zone for the comprehensive reform package of coordinated urban-rural development, Chengdu has boldly pursued reforms and active innovation, achieving strong results across all areas of urban-rural coordination. This has laid the foundation for building a low-carbon industrial structure and promoting low-carbon lifestyles.

According to the Work Plan for Building a Low-Carbon City in Chengdu issued at the beginning of this year, by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan, the share of non-fossil energy in Chengdu's total energy consumption will reach over 30%, forest coverage will rise to above 38%, and CO₂ emissions per 10,000 yuan of GDP will fall to below 1.15 tons, maintaining the city's leading position among China's sub-provincial cities and its leading position in central and western China.

Chengdu drives the development of its low-carbon economy through pilot demonstration zones. The main approach is to establish low-carbon demonstration counties and cities, prioritizing the development of the Qingbaijiang low-carbon economic zone, which has the highest energy consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP in the city. At the same time, while building national circular-economy pilot parks, it demonstrates and drives low-carbon development in high-energy-consumption areas. It also focuses on building the low-carbon economic zones in the Chengdu High-Tech Zone and Wenjiang District, which have relatively lower energy consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP, creating model low-carbon economy demonstration areas.

Another distinctive feature of Chengdu's approach is its working mechanisms, which include ecological compensation for public-welfare forests and compensation and rewards for energy consumption per unit of GDP. Experts believe that these mechanisms, which encourage afforestation, strengthen biological carbon sequestration, and promote the optimization of the city's industrial structure, are the direct drivers of Chengdu's sustainable economic development.

"Zero-Carbon Chengdu" Logo

According to experts, "Zero-Carbon Chengdu" is a symbol of Chengdu and should highlight the regional characteristics of Chengdu's low-carbon economic development to distinguish it from other low-carbon cities both domestically and internationally. It is reported that "Zero-Carbon Chengdu" was proposed as early as 2004, and after several years of development, it has gained a certain status and influence both nationally and globally. Zero-Carbon Chengdu will further enhance the city's ecological quality and soft power, adding new content and new support to Chengdu's "New Three Bests" goal, and becoming a highlight and feature of Chengdu's low-carbon city construction.

"In terms of building energy efficiency, Chengdu will strictly implement the 50% energy-saving design standard for new buildings, with priority given to energy-saving technologies such as geothermal energy and reclaimed water reuse in architectural design. Regarding the promotion of green lighting, the goal is to promote the application of 400,000 LED lamps by 2012. The Dujiangyan area will deploy 5,000–6,000 bicycles for people to rent free of charge for a certain period. Chengdu will pilot the 'Free Bicycle' program in the Southern New District..." Chengdu's measures to promote the development of a low-carbon economy continue unabated.

Currently, Chengdu is making every effort to build a world-class modern garden city, focusing on ecology, environmental protection, and the low-carbon economy, and combining "low-carbon" with "garden" to sublimate the city's connotation, further highlighting Chengdu's distinctive features.

Industry experts say that Chengdu's development of a low-carbon economy is an effective path to achieving the development goals of a world-class modern garden city. Developing a low-carbon economy requires not only making energy conservation and consumption reduction the main goals, but also actively adjusting the industrial structure and transforming the development mode in accordance with the requirements of the modern garden city development for the urban industrial system, achieving high-end industrialization in the process of industrial low-carbon transformation, thereby providing sustainable and strong industrial support for achieving the development goals of a world-class modern garden city.