Urbanization with low energy consumption

In urban and rural planning it is wise to consider the environment ahead of development, especially in regards to resource exploitation. According to current data from the National Energy Administration, every percentage point increase in the urban-rural ratio, 80 million more metric tons of standard coal will be consumed. But we should not rely on high-energy consumption to realize urbanization, says an article in Beijing News. Excerpts:

It is predicted that when the ratio of urbanization reaches 60 percent in 2020, an additional 800 million tons of standard coal will be consumed, equivalent to the energy consumption of France, Italy and Spain, and even approaching the total energy consumption of South America. By then, urban areas will be the main areas for carbon emissions and energy resource consumption in China.

In fact, in the current process of urbanization in China, some problems already appeared to be caused by high-energy consumption, like the excessive rapid growth of resource consumption, traffic jams and incorrect allocation in industrial distribution and high carbon emissions. We win at speed, but lose at quality and even lose blue skies in cities.

The experience of developed countries shows that without high quality growth and support from the environment, such urbanization is only a "castle in the air" and cannot be sustainable.

Just as the central government highlighted before: We should realize the change of the economic growth model from quantity to quality.

Therefore, urbanization in China should promote low carbon in the urban areas in the beginning with necessary financial support, which should be increased with growing consumption. Specifically, we should make efficient utilization of natural resources and explore and develop clean energy. It will be a win-win for China if we can realize urbanization with low energy consumption.