2015 China Green Low-Carbon City Scorecard

Panel: 3. Local action

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Li Yang, Innovative Green Development Program, China
Min Hu, Energy Foundation China, China
Jingjing Zhang, Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA
Stephanie Ohshita, Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and University of San Francisco, USA
David Fridley, Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA
Nina Zheng Khanna, Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA
Nan Zhou, Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA
Lynn Price, Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA
Shuang Liu, Energy Foundation China, China
Ang Li, Innovative Green Development Program, China
Miao Sun, Innovative Green Development Program, China
Lingyan Chen
Ang Li
Miao Sun
Yanhui Wang

Abstract

Following China’s rapid urbanization and industrialization, cities have taken important roles in helping the country reach its climate change mitigation goal of peaking CO2 emissions around 2030, and improving environmental quality. During the 12th Five-Year Plan (12th FYP) period (2011-2015), Chinese cities set ambitious goals and implemented diverse policies aimed at transitioning to a greener economy. a more comprehensive and integrated approach is needed to capture the multi-dimensional aspects and processes of China’s cities’ transition to a greener economy, and can be comparable to international best practices, as well as fitting into the Chinese conditions.

This study is largely based on quantitative method. The index of China Green Low-Carbon City Index (CGLCCI) is developed and applied to 115 Chinese cities. The GCLCCI includes 23 key indicators across seven dimensions -- economic, energy, industry, buildings, transportation, environment and land use, climate policy and outreach. This paper applied the CGLCCI to track and benchmark green and low-carbon development status of 115 Chinese cities in 2015. Analysis using the CGLCCI relied on available government data sources, and a standardized method to calculate overall city scores.

The results showed that the low-carbon transition in Chinese cities is still in its early stages. Compared to the best practices benchmarks, the selected cities scored from the lowest score 28.4 to the highest score of 70.8 in 2015 (full score is 100). The paper also identified three top-performing cities in different stages of development and analyzed how they achieved high scores across the index categories. Creating a green low-carbon index that relies on publicly available data in China, and regularly evaluating city performance can encourage Chinese cities to learn best practices from each other, and to strengthen their goals and implementation efforts, are essential to spur China towards a green low-carbon transition.