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【中文标题】一个气候中性的中国
【原文标题】A Climate-Neutral China
【来源地址】http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/011075.html
【原文库链接】http://bbs.m4.cn/thread-256330-1-1.html
【译者】rlsrls08
【校对】rhapsody
【声明】本文供Anti-CNN/ACCN使用,未经译者或AC同意,谢绝转载;谢谢合作。
【译文】(提示:文字图片点击即可放大^^~)
城市革新:从上海军医院的楼顶远眺上海全景(摄于2004年)
如果我们想要展望城市未来的话,就应把眼光投向中国。该国城市化的速度可谓是史无前例。根据麦肯锡全球研究院的说法,从现在到2030年,中国城市居民预计会新增超过3.5亿人,城镇总人口将膨胀到10亿以上。届时,中国将有超过220座百万人口以上的城市(相形之下,欧洲如今只有35座百万人口以上的城市),以及24座过500万居民的新兴超大城市。
建设如此之多的城市几乎是一项无法想象的艰巨任务。这在住房、交通、饮水和能源方面都需要有大规模的投资。麦肯锡研究院预计,在接下来20年里,中国将建设多达5万座摩天大楼(可以想象成“十个纽约”),数亿栋住宅楼,超过170处全新的公交工程,数千座新的大型医院和大学,数十万座公园、学校、消防站和社区中心。即使是在现今经济衰退的情势之下,中国(城市)的兴盛预计仍将持续,这着实考验北美和欧洲人的想象力,他们都习惯于将城市想成是稳定的,而变化是缓慢的。
所有新的建筑都可能要花大价钱,因此,至关重要的是,中国的城市应建得简洁紧凑、绿色环保,使用洁净能源供电,并有公共交通系统和可持续食品体系的支持。
中国有60座城市人口超过百万:上图比较了中国的城市人口与世界知名度更高的“大”城市之人口[感谢連長译制此图]
环境问题和健康问题
不管是从未来的角度来看,还是就当前的需要而言,中国对智能城市革新和洁净能源成长的需求是巨大的。中国已经身处生态灾难的边缘。该国忍受着世界上最严重的空气污染。举例来说,香港的空气质量一年之中仅有41天刚刚符合世界卫生组织的最低限度,而其他城市的空气质量还有比香港差得远的。事实上,世界银行声称世界上20个污染最严重的城市有16个出自中国,每年有40万人死于恶劣的空气质量。
而从更广泛的角度看,情况则更为严重。中国遭受着快速荒漠化的侵袭,其耕地流失了大量的表层土壤,其三分之一的土地受到酸雨的影响。2010年一个调查显示,中国水道的退化程度是以前报告的两倍以上。中国三分之二的河流和湖泊受到了严重污染(中国沿江城市的癌症发病率异常的高)。尽管依然奔流万里,长江在生物意义上濒于死亡,逾3.4亿中国人根本没有安全饮用水。中国人基本生活依赖的自然系统以惊人的速度在解体。
一个碳中和的中国?
中国严重的污染问题不仅给他们自己敲响了警钟,也与另一个全球性的问题紧密相连:中国现在是世界上最大的温室气体排放国。尽管平均到每个人上边,中国的排放相对而言确实还不算多,但该国日趋繁荣的景况正在改变这一情形。此外,中国的庞大规模意味着,假如中国不作出改变,则人类亦无法达到全球碳中和的目标。一个碳中和的中国,是一个气候稳定的世界的先决条件。
绿色的中国这一设想还存在可能性吗?也许比我们通常所想的更有可能。美国和欧洲许多人的看法都源于这样一个假设——中国的未来道路会像他们过去那样:用劣质低效的建筑堆砌出一座座杂乱无章的城市,采用污浊的煤炭发电,以及靠有毒所谓制造业来拉动经济。但有迹象表明,中国已经开始走向另一条道路,也许正准备接受这么一个观点,即一个气候友好型的经济是其未来繁荣的关键。
为开启这种碳中性的繁荣未来,中国需要重塑自己的城市,使其城市的规划和发展成为世界建设绿色未来的一个最重要支点。如果中国的城市建设于污浊能源和落后规划之上,世界上的问题只会越来越严重。但种种迹象表明中国已准备好沿着一条相当不同的路线来发展。下边要阐述的便是中国能源生产和可再生能源投资,以及城市革新的现状。
天津溏沽港(摄于2005年)
能源
中国环境和健康问题的一个主要原因在于其电力的来源,现时该国电力绝大部分是靠燃煤生产(这种发电厂通常污浊而且低效)。无论如何,对亿万人民来说,生活在用煤发电的城市中的未来将是严峻的,但亦有确切的迹象表明,这种宿命并非不可避免。实际上,中国正成为洁净能源的世界引领者。
根据世界观察研究所的报告,中国现有的风能发电装机容量排行世界第四,并正朝着2020年1000亿瓦的风能装机容量前进。而且中国有一些世界上最好的风力资源:哈佛大学和清华大学的研究人员在《科学》杂志上发表的文章表明,在2030年前中国就可以通过风力发电,满足预测的全部电力需求,而所需人均投资不到1000美元。
中国的风力发电机
根据地球政策研究所的说法,中国现时已经是世界领先的太阳能电板生产者,产出已从2004年的4000万瓦跃升到2008年的18亿4800万瓦,而且还在持续加速增长。虽然大部分的太阳能电池板用于出口,中国正日渐扩大太阳能在其能源结构中的比例,包括在内蒙古的沙漠建设一个20亿瓦的项目,可望在2019年建成,并成为世界上最大的太阳能光电设施。
然而,尽管在风能、太阳能以及其他可再生能源上进行了大胆的努力尝试,但中国建设新体系的同时预计仍将燃烧大量的煤。“多少”尚且无从得知,可以这么说,中国之所以启动了一大套方案——帮助中国煤炭发电厂提高效率,加速推行中国工业的能源效率标准,并且专注产品设计的可持续性——原因就在于此。中国有很长的路要走,但显然该国至少仍有机会大幅度削减排放量,即使是在未来20年,十亿中国公民建设新城市的时候。
城市革新
在中国,汽车大量增加和郊区蔓延伸展的现象已经引起了重视。城市中越来越严重的交通拥堵无疑令人印象深刻,而这绝非个别(城市的)现象;美国式的住宅区则是极为罕见的新奇事物。行走在中国城市中的主要仍是骑自行车的人、行人、公共汽车乘客和列车乘客。更重要的是,许多中国的年轻人非常了解通过智能化发展和新的交通设施来规划宜居城市格局的世界潮流。他们寻找中国模式以引导自己城市的发展。虽然有些人可能认为中国城市规划仍是自相矛盾,但许多城市革新正在中国发生。
一些革新项目已经停了下来,比如上海的东滩项目。参与东滩项目的官员们卷入一桩不相关的丑闻,而全球经济衰退使得原本可能投放到风险项目的资金陷于枯竭,东滩项目因而不幸暂停。尽管该计划仍然记录在案,但对于继续建设这个生态城市并未规定一个期限。更有希望的或许是把天津建成生态城市的计划。
其他革新则更成功一些。中国正是纳入了种种前卫绿色特征的众多小规模展示项目和社区发展计划的所在地。更重要的是,2010年上海世博会及其口号“城市让生活更美好”大大促进了中国人的一些讨论:何为宜居城市?怎样让新开发的用地集中于构建更适于步行,也更为可持续发展的城市?绿色建筑的做法也开始相当迅速地推广开来。中国已经建立了自己的绿色建筑标准:三星评级制度。目前该标准相对其他国家的绿色建筑认证方案而言更让人满意,而且似乎也更快地得到了推广。中国建筑整体上——尤其是旧建筑——设计仍是出奇地差,效能也是出奇地低。但新兴的翻修行业和政府官员对提升现有建筑物能源效率的支持,似乎暗示了更广泛的改进工作可能正在进行中。
武广高铁
中国专注于改善铁路基础设施的举措非常成功,在此领域已处于世界领先地位。麦肯锡全球研究所说,中国的城市正经历着“历史上最蓬勃发展的公共交通革新”。中国还推出世界上最为大胆的计划:拓展其城际铁路网。最近,他们开通了高速专线“和谐号快车”,连接两个新兴都市武汉和广州,把11个小时的行程缩减到3个小时。另有30000公里的铁路轨道已经开始动工,其中包括9000公里高铁线路,将在2015年前连接中国所有的主要城市。美国《商业周刊》曾经报道中国计划延伸高速铁路网络穿过俄罗斯,远至欧洲,客运列车能以320公里的时速在相距8000公里的北京和柏林之间通行。这跟航空旅行相比,将是非常有竞争力的另一种选择,尤其是在油价和碳税上涨增加了飞行成本的情况下。
更多的生态城市发展计划、绿色建筑标准,以及关键的铁路基础设施——这些城市革新项目是个良好的开端,但若只是说“仍有许多工作要做”,就显得太轻描淡写了。
碳中和的中国需要绿色的城市
然而,尽管中国面临着极大困难,但值得停下来思考中国的实力,还有想象中国的成功。事实上,据各种流传的说法,中国的城市可以在构想和创造方面运用到很多帮助,为更具可持续性的将来找到解决方案。上海世博会在文化上是了不起的第一步,但中国将需要为自己创造新的想象空间,其步伐和规模都会是空前的。想象未来,在中国是一个兴旺的行业。
当然,时机恰到好处。中国的城市是世界建设绿色未来最重要的支点之一。如果中国的城市远离过时的能源和城市设计模型,趋向紧致和可持续的中心城市范例,采用洁净可再生能源供电,修建绿色建筑,使用公共交通,那么,不仅全球的排放量会迅速下降,还将引发城市革新的热潮,这意味着确实有机会将更为可持续的变革路线推广至世界各地,达至共同繁荣。中国的绿色城市可以改变未来。
【原文】
A Climate-Neutral China
Alex Steffen, 28 Jun 10
If we want to anticipate the future of cities, we should look to China. China is urbanizing at a rate unprecedented in history. Between now and 2030, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, Chinese cities are expected to add more than 350 million people, swelling to a total urban population of more than a billion. By then, China will have more than 220 cities with populations of more than a million (by comparison, Europe today has only 35 cities with one million+ inhabitants), and 24 emerging megacities with more than five million inhabitants.
Building that many cities is an almost incomprehensibly huge task. It will demand massive investments in housing, transportation, water and energy systems. In the next 20 years, McKinsey estimates that China will build as many as 50,000 skyscrapers (which might be thought of as "ten New Yorks"). It will build hundreds of millions of apartment buildings. It will design and build more than 170 completely new mass-transit systems, thousands of new major hospitals and universities, hundreds of thousands of parks, schools, fire stations and community centers. The boom China is expected to continue to go through, even in an economic downtown, boggles the imagination of North Americans and Europeans, who are used to thinking of cities as stable and slow to change.
All that new building could come at a massive cost, so it is critical that China's cities be compact, built green, powered by clean energy, and served by mass transit and sustainable food systems.
ENVIRONMENTAL AND HEALTH WOES
The need for smart urban innovation and increased clean energy is great in China, not only from a future perspective, but also from present need. Already, China is teetering on the edge of ecological catastrophe. It suffers from some of the worst air pollution in the world. For instance, Hong Kong's air quality meets the bare minimum World Health Organization standards on average of only 41 days a year, and air quality is, if anything, much worse in other cities. Indeed, the World Bank says that 16 of the 20 most polluted cites in the world are in China, and 400,000 people a year die as a result of poor air quality.
The picture only worsens when we look at the broader picture. China is suffering rapid desertification, has lost massive amounts of top soil from its farmlands and one third of its land is affected by acid rain. A 2010 investigation revealed that Chinese waterways were more than twice as degraded as previously reported. Two thirds of China’s rivers and lakes are dangerously polluted (cancer rates are extraordinarily high in riverside cities in China); the Yangtse River is now biologically dead for long stretches of its run, and more than 340 million Chinese have no access at all to safe drinking water. The natural systems China's people depend on for the basics of life are unraveling at astonishing speed.
A CARBON-NEUTRAL CHINA?
The magnitudes of these pollution problems in China are alarming in their own right, but they’re also bound up with another planetary problem: China is now the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gasses. While it's true that per person, China’s emissions are still relatively moderate, the country’s increasing prosperity is changing that. Additionally, the sheer size of the nation means that globally, humanity cannot reach the goal of planetary carbon-neutrality without China changing its ways. A carbon-neutral China is a prerequisite for a climate-stabilized world.
Is a bright green China even possible? Perhaps more possible than we usually think. Many people in the U.S. and Europe start from the assumption that China will behave in the future as it did in the past: slap up sprawling cities of shoddy, inefficient buildings, powered by dirty coal and driven economically by toxic manufacturing. But there are signs that China is already beginning to embrace a different path forward, perhaps preparing to embrace the idea that a climate-friendly economy is the key to its future prosperity.
To unlock that carbon-neutral prosperity, China needs to remake its cities, which makes their design and development one of the most important leverage points in the world for building a bright green future. If China's cities are built with dirty energy and outdated designs, the world's problems will only intensify. But signs abound that China is poised to develop along very different lines. Here’s a look at the current state of energy production and renewable energy investment, and urban innovation happening in China.
ENERGY
A major cause of China's environmental and health woes is the source of its power, which at this point is overwhelmingly generated by burning coal (often in inefficient and dirty power plants). A future of a billion Chinese living in coal-powered cities would be grim no matter what else happened, but there are real signs that that fate is not inevitable. Indeed, China is becoming a world leader in clean energy.
China is fourth in the world for installed wind energy capacity, according to the Worldwatch Institute, and is on track to install 100 gigawatts of wind power by 2020. And China has some of the best wind resources in the world: the journal Science published a 2009 report by researchers from Harvard and Tsinghua Universities demonstrating that for an investment of less than $1,000 per citizen, China could supply all its predicted demand for electricity with wind power by 2030.
China is already the world's leading producer of solar panels, according to the Earth Policy Institute, having jumped its output from 40 megawatts in 2004 to 1,848 megawatts in 2008, with continued expansion accelerating. While most of those solar panels have been manufactured for export, China is increasingly adding solar power to its energy mix, including building a 2,000 megawatt project in the Mongolian desert, which, when completed in 2019, is expected be the largest solar photovoltaic facility in the world.
Still, even with bold efforts in wind, solar and other renewables, China is expected to burn a lot of coal while it builds new systems. ‘How much’ is still up in the air, so to speak, which is why a whole host of programs have been launched to help increase the efficiency of Chinese coal-fired power plants, speed adoption of energy efficiency standards in Chinese industry, and focus product design on sustainability. China has a very long way to go, but it is clear that there's at least a chance that China could dramatically slash its power emissions over the next two decades, even while a billion Chinese citizens go about building their new cities.
URBAN INNOVATION
Much has been made of the spread of cars and suburban sprawl in China. While the growth of traffic jams in Chinese cities is certainly impressive, it's far from the only story, and American-style subdivisions are an extremely rare novelty. Urban China continues to be a nation mostly of bicyclists, pedestrians, bus riders and train passengers. What's more, many young Chinese are well aware of global trends in designing livable cities through smart growth and new transit options and are seeking Chinese versions to guide the growth of their own cities. While some might insist that Chinese urban planning is still a contradiction in terms, there is plenty of urban innovation happening in China.
Some of that innovation has been halting. Take Shanghai's Dongtan project. Unfortunately, the Dongtan project stalled when officials involved in the project were caught up in an unrelated scandal, and when the global recession dried up capital that could have been invested in what might have been a risky project. Though the plans are still officially on the books, there is no deadline for moving forward with building this eco-city. More promising perhaps are the plans for an eco-city in Tianjin.
Other innovations have been more successful. China is home to a host of smaller-scale demonstration projects and neighborhood developments that have incorporated newer green features. What's more, the 2010 Shanghai Expo -- with its motto "Better City – Better Life" – has greatly accelerated the Chinese conversation about what makes a livable city and how new development can be concentrated to produce more walkable, sustainable cities. Green building practices have also begun to spread fairly quickly. China has created its own green building standard, the Three Star system, that, so far, both compares favorably to other nations' green building certification schemes (PDF) and seems to be being adopted more rapidly. Chinese buildings on the whole -- especially older buildings -- are still shockingly poorly designed and inefficient, but a budding retrofit industry and official support for the idea of raising the energy efficiency of existing buildings seems to indicate that more widespread improvements may be in the works.
China’s focus on improving their train infrastructure has been very successful and a place where China is becoming a world leader. The McKinsey Global Institute says Chinese cities are undergoing the "greatest boom in mass-transit in history." China is also launching the world's boldest plan for expanding its inter-city rail network. They recently opened the high-speed line Harmony Express, which links the cities of Wuhan and Guangzhou, has cut travel time between the two boomtowns from eleven hours to three. Construction has begun on another 30,000 kilometers of rail tracks, including 9,000 kilometers of high-speed rail lines, which will connect all of China’s major cities by 2015. Businessweek has reported on plans to extend the nation's high-speed rail network through Russia and as far as Europe, enabling passengers to travel the 8,000 kilometers between Beijing and Berlin at 320 kph. This would offer a competitive alternative to air travel, especially as the cost of flying rises with fuel costs and carbon taxes.
These urban innovations of increased development of eco-cities, green building standards, and critical train infrastructure are a good start, but to say much work remains to be done would be an understatement.
A CARBON-NEUTRAL CHINA NEEDS BRIGHT GREEN CITIES
Yet, despite the long odds China faces, it's worth stopping to consider China's strengths and imagine Chinese success. Indeed, Chinese cities could, by all accounts, use a lot of help envisioning and innovating the solutions for more sustainable futures. The Shanghai Expo is a terrific first cultural step, but China will need to create new imaginings of itself at a pace and on a scale we're never seen before. Imagining the future is a boom industry in China.
And of course, none too soon. Chinese cities are one of the most important leverage points in the world for building a bright green future. If China’s cities move away from outdated energy and urban design models, towards dense and sustainable urban centers powered by clean renewable energy, filled with green buildings and serviced by mass transit, then not only will global emissions level off more quickly, but a resulting boom in urban innovation will mean the world has a real shot at transforming prosperity everywhere along more sustainable lines. Bright green Chinese cities could change the future. |
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