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Last week, China’s State Council released a new set of guidelines for strengthening urban planning and development. As the world’s most populous nation, China’s urban development will set the tone as urban populations continue to grow worldwide.
From massive superblocks to seemingly infinite series of ring roads, Chinese cities have increasingly been designed to serve cars. The trend is leaving its mark: congestion clogs streets and smog spews from ubiquitous cars, putting urbanites in an all too literal chokehold. One of the things falling apart, in the wake of this gasoline gyre, is something far less conspicuous than car culture, yet critical to China’s future: walkability.
Developers and local governments can establish a new pattern for sustainable cities in China. The scale and speed of China’s urbanization is unprecedented – whether the country’s urbanization proceeds sustainably will critically impact the world’s efforts to mitigate climate change.
Electricity from competitive wholesale power markets keeps the lights on for two-thirds of all Americans, but things may be about to change – for the better. Four factors will make 2016 a turning point for policymakers, clean energy providers, and wholesale market operators to work together and modernize America’s regulated wholesale power markets.
China’s urbanization offers incredible promise, but stronger action is needed to implement the goal of “building cities for people” for it to truly succeed. California and the United States have learned firsthand the high cost of building cities around cars. It’s not too late for China to avoid making these same mistakes.
With the Paris talks just ending and policymakers thinking about how to meet national commitments, it is a useful time to review the current status of U.S. power sector emissions and energy trends shaping the next decade.
China Development Bank Capital, Energy Innovation, and the Energy Foundation have released the Green and Smart Guidelines for Urban Development. This series looks more closely at the issues related to sustainable urban development in China.
Now that the Paris conference on climate change has wrapped up, it is an ideal moment to take stock: Can we land the world on a reasonable climate future? What is required to do so?
Market forces are precipitously changing the role of utilities. Private companies are offering customers more choices and control over their electricity through energy efficient products and services, demand management, self-generation like rooftop solar, smart electric vehicle chargers, and on-site storage. At the same time, the role of utility-scale wind and solar is growing, as costs have plummeted since 2010.
Many policymakers understand the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but they face a bewildering variety of policy options that may—or may not—help achieve this goal. There has never been an objective way to assess the impacts of energy policy and how numerous policies can work together. On October 20, Energy Innovation launched Energy Policy Solutions, a tool that does just this.
