China's one foot in fossil fuels and the other in renewables

The building sector accounts for about 20% of the total primary energy consumption in China[1]. While the national government has been updating and improving national standards on energy efficiency in buildings , provincial and city governments...

By Yunqing BI

Regulatory policy

From the first Chinese Design Standards for Civil Buildings in 1986 to the recent released National Standard of Green Buildings...

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of the People’s Republic of China (MOHURD) published the National Calculation Standard for Building’s Carbon Emission (the Standard), which...

The Chinese capital plans to use facial recognition technology to stamp out housing abuses. By adopting facial scanning system called ‘smart locks’ for its public housing scheme, Beijing seeks to improve security and counter crimes such as...

A recent national survey found that 50 million apartments and houses in China are currently empty. In other words, one in every five homes in the country is uninhabited – a vacancy rate unlike that of any other nation. The phenomenon is largely...

It is getting harder for tenants in China’s large cities to meet their rising rental payments. In 11 Chinese cities, housing rents went up by 20% from the summer of 2017 to 2018. In Beijing, the rental jump of 21.16% between 2017-18 stands at a...

The industrialisation of prefabricated ultra-low energy buildings is one of the main steps in the transformation and upgrading of China's construction industry, and it is also one of the key areas supported by the Sino-German Urbanisation...

As one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions globally, the construction sector holds immense responsibility and potential to reduce its footprint by incorporating green-building technologies. One such technology is “Plus Energy...

The Chinese Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has announced to push forward the political prioritisation of developing long-term rental markets and stabilising of housing prices. In the context of the 13th National People’s Congress...

The Chinese government has demonstrated a strong commitment to making green buildings a top priority in the coming years. Green buildings are designed to maximise the use of resources, producing little to zero energy waste. The government has...

Staff of Munich’s City Council introduces the Isar River Restoration Program

Last week, the delegation of Chinese mayors visited the Munich City Hall and discussed the...

The International Horticultural Expo2019 in Yanqing District of Beijing has opened its gates to the public, giving access to over 110 diverse pavilions stretching over a startling size of 960 hectares . During the opening ceremony, President Xi...

China has criticised rich nations for making feeble efforts to counter global warming at the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (“COP24”). The event, which took place on 2-15 December 2018...

According to the Chinese media outlet, Caixin , China’s enthusiastic goals to wean waves of households off coal energy and onto either liquid natural gas (LNG) or electricity are facing difficulties. This move is part of China’s plan to crackdown...

Li Gao, a high ranking Chinese climate change official, has affirmed that the country will not relax its anti-smog campaign regardless of the economic strains posed by the trade war with the US. China experienced its slowest quarterly growth rate...

A joint research study by scholars from Harvard, Tsinghua and Harbin Institute of Technology indicates that China may have overlooked one of the key culprits of Beijing’s winter smog: formaldehyde. It is claimed that Chinese environmental...

This summer’s heatwaves highlighted urban inequality by displaying the contrasting ways of tackling the treacherous temperatures in cities across the world. In Shanghai, a city of 24 million, residents with no air-conditioning escaped the heat...

Energy efficiency is one of the main pillars of China's climate policy. It has been included in the five-year plans since the mid-2000s. Between 2010-2015, China's energy intensity fell by 18.2 percent, exceeding the national goal of a 16%...

According to a recent study, a majority of Chinese citizens are concerned about climate change and have already experienced its wrath with this summer's heatwaves, typhoons etc. in urban and rural China. A survey in 2017 indicates that almost 95...

Being the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, China has priortized taking more responsibility towards mitigating climate change, including its role in international cooperatin on climate change. Zhou Dadi, a member on China's National...

The effective implementation of reducing emissions under China’s Five-Year Clean Air Action Plan (2013-17), led to a sharp drop in PM2.5 levels at the beginning of 2018 . Although highly welcome, this seemed unusual to Beijingers, as the city’s...

As the 13th National People’s Congress convened in March 2018 revealed increased financial spending directed towards R&D of pollution-countering technologies, discussions have ensued over possible innovative counter pollution strategies....

China issued a new development plan for the Yangtze River Economic Belt which includes 2 municipalities and 9 provinces and is set to promote a green low-carbon development and repairs most of the environmental damage which accrued along the...