Ever imagine an airport that serves only one route with only one flight that only operates on Monday, Wednesday and Friday? Welcome to Guangyuan in Sichuan Province, a city with 2200-plus years of history. Situated on a flattened top of a mountain, the Guangyuan Airport only serves one flight between Beijing and Guangyuan on three weekdays per week. You cannot fly to anywhere else from this airport.

(The Guangyuan Airport)

When I first landed at the airport, I was amazed at the simplicity and tininess of the airport. Two hours before, I had just took off from the splendid Beijing Capital Airport. Far beyond my imagination, the Guangyuan Airport was more like a greyhound bus station in comparison. Although I had been told of how underdeveloped Guangyuan is, it still took me some time to realize the reality. With an area of about 16,300 square kilometers and a population of 3.1 million people, Guangyuan's per capita GDP is only one third of China's national average with 80 percent of Guangyuan's population engaged in agriculture. During the earthquake that struck Sichuan on May 12, 2008, nearly 90 percent of the urban and rural structures in Guangyuan were damaged to various degrees, and more than 2.4 million people were affected. For example, in one of Guangyuan's counties, Qingchuan, many buildings were completely flattened and 250,000 people became homeless overnight. While GDP growth rates in Guangyuan reached 13.5 percent in both 2006 and 2007, the 2008 GDP growth rate was reduced sharply to 3.3 percent due to the destruction caused by the earthquake. Guangyuan's direct economic loss from the earthquake amounts to RMB 120 billion (about $17 billion USD).

 (A damaged building under repair)

Bumpy and muddy, the road to Guangyuan city was an instant reminder of the catastrophic impact that the earthquake had last year in this area. Facing a massive post-earthquake reconstruction challenge, the city government is aiming to seize the opportunity to transform Guangyuan into a low carbon city. Personally, I believe, it takes just as much unwavering determination for the Guangyuan city government to brave the challenge of reconstructing the city on a green plan as it does for the Obama administration to redirect the American economy during a crisis towards a greener economy.     

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a national think tank for climate change and sustainable development, was commissioned by a UK grant to conduct a one-year low-carbon reconstruction city planning project in this severely damaged city. The outcome of this project will serve as a roadmap for China's 600-plus small and medium cities on how to mitigate and adapt to climate change while maintaining economic growth, rapid urbanization and industrialization. Viewing this as a very intriguing challenge, I accepted an invitation to serve as an advisor to the team, and flew to Guangyuan for an on-site survey with the CASS team.

On the day I arrived in Guangyuan, world leaders happened to be gathering at the UN to reiterate their hopes to reach a climate agreement in Copenhagen. Chinese President Hu Jintao announced that China would reduce its carbon intensity, though no specific number was provided. No matter what number China eventually sets as the target, it is really up to local governments in places like Guangyuan to implement and fulfill the targets. I cannot say enough about the importance of the CASS' pilot project in Guangyuan. While many would focus their efforts on China's economic centers, such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, CASS chose Guangyuan because it is more representative of China's small and medium sized cities that are going through an early phase of industrialization, experiencing fast city expansion and population explosion, and facing huge environment and energy challenges. How to balance the needs of economic growth and the pressures of GHG emissions reduction is a critical question to be answered in this research.

In its Industrial Park Development Plan for 2009-2015, Guangyuan made it clear that clean energy and low carbon technologies would be the driving force. Since natural gas is abundant in Guangyuan, the government decided to encourage all industries to switch from coal to natural gas, which would significantly reduce GHG emissions. In addition, in rural Longtan County, one of the four counties in Guangyuan, all households have installed biogas plants. This year, all biogas plants alone in Guangyuan will cut carbon dioxide emissions by 6.5 million tons. Guangyuan plans to construct biogas plants for at least 60 percent of all rural households by 2015.

But all of the above measures alone are not enough to put Guangyuan on a low-carbon path.. To expedite post-earthquake economy recovery and industrialization, Guangyuan established an "express lane" for approving industrial reconstruction projects, which simplified application procedures and lifted environmental restrictions. As a result, many high pollutant and energy-intensive industries migrated to Guangyuan from developed areas. With abundant resources and cheap energy, it is likely that Guangyuan could be on an unsustainable path unless a low-carbon development framework is put in place.

(An industrial park supported by Zhejiang Province with energy-intensive textile plants, aluminum manufacturing plants, etc.)

Required by the Chinese central government, Guangyuan needs to cut down its energy intensity by 20 percent from its 2005 level by 2010. However, Guangyuan only managed to cut down its energy intensity by a total of 8.04 percent by the end of 2008, achieving merely 40 percent of the goal in three years. For 2009 and 2010, Guangyuan needs to cut down 6.5 percent each year to meet the goal, which is a very daunting task.

For the construction industry, only structural durability to sustain another earthquake was emphasized in the reconstruction efforts. Energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy in the reconstruction, however, were not given the attention they deserve. Based on the Guangyuan Post-earthquake Urban and Rural Housing Reconstruction Plan, 12 million square meter buildings will be built by 2010. A lock-in inefficiency will be tremendous if we don't move quickly to make appropriate modifications to the plan, which will begin implementation soon.

The CASS project will provide recommendations to revise several of Guangyuan's reconstruction efforts, including: 1) the Post-earthquake Reconstruction Master Plan, 2) Reconstruction Urban Planning, 3) the Urban & rural Housing Reconstruction Plan, 4) the Industrial Development Plan and 5) Policy recommendation for Guangyuan's 12th Five Year Plan.

Three case studies will be conducted, including 1) a low-carbon community, 2) low-carbon buildings, and 3) an assessment and policy design of renewable energy for rural areas.

On the 2nd day of my trip, I gave a half-day workshop to Guangyuan's construction and urban planning officials, researchers and developers. The workshop focused on six areas: 

• 1. Building and climate change
• 2. How to use local materials for buildings
• 3. Building energy label
• 4. Smart growth
• 5. Low carbon community design
• 6. Case study on sustainable urban planning

I'll continue to blog my research findings down the road.

A damaged building under repair