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3910’ CONCEPT GUIDES GREEN BEIJING ACTION PLAN

 On November 24, 2009, the Beijing Municipal Commission on Development and Reform released a tentative version of the Green Beijing Action Plan seeking ideas from the public. Comment closed on the Commission's Web site December 31 with 10,000 site visits and 500 comments. 

为了巩固扩大“绿色奥运”的成果，应对当今全球气候变化和资源环境约束的新挑战，全面践行绿色发展理念，北京于2009年12月发布了《绿色北京行动计划（2010—2012年）（讨论稿）》（以下简称《行动计划（讨论稿）》），其中，“3910工程”是此次《行动计划（讨论稿）》的主要内容，明确提出将建设3大体系，实施9大绿色工程，完善10项机制，将北京打造成为“绿色之城”。

在建设三大体系中，北京将推动产业优化升级，全力打造绿色生产体系；弘扬生态文明理念，积极创建绿色消费体系；统筹城乡生态建设，加快完善绿色环境体系。

根据《行动计划（讨论稿）》，北京还将重点围绕能源、建筑、交通、大气等领域，积极推进9大绿色工程的实施。其中，清洁能源利用工程的重点是推广新能源和可再生能源；绿色建筑推广工程包括强化新建建筑节能标准，深化既有建筑、公共机构节能改造等项目；绿色交通出行工程与市民息息相关，继续加快轨道交通建设、增辟公交专用道、完善路网系统等工程，到2012年，北京中心城区公共交通出行的比例力争达到42%。与此同时，节能环保新技术和新产品推广工程、城乡绿化美化工程、绿色典范打造工程等也同步推进。

为了确保“绿色北京”建设顺利，北京还提出了构建多层次的绿色发展政策体系，建立起包括组织领导、法规引导、标准准入、价格调控等在内的10项机制。

根据《行动计划（讨论稿）》，到2012年，北京将实现经济发展方式转型升级，绿色消费模式和生活方式全面弘扬，宜居的生态环境基本形成，北京初步建设成为生产清洁化、消费友好化、环境优美化、资源高效化的绿色现代化世界城市。

Industrialization brought humankind an almost unimaginable ability to produce goods by exploiting  nature. Now, life on earth faces numerous challenges and turning points that stem from the misuse of natural resources and carelessness about the damage being done in the name of progress to our life-giving habitat: the earth.

The Chinese Government fully recognizes the perils of environmental degradation; this is why the ruling Communist party advanced the national strategy of a "Scientific Outlook toward Development" in 2003 and why the Beijing Municipal Government, following its Olympic successes in 2008, released its “People’s Beijing, Science Beijing and Green Beijing” development strategy. Now, the 2010 Green Beijing Action Plan, released on December 24, 2009 will bring even more attention and focus to this task.

By 2020, the goal of turning Beijing into a city "congenial to live in" will have been attained, featuring a much more developed international urban lifestyle, cleaner production, more environmentally friendly consumption, a more beautiful environment and a more efficient use of natural resources.

A foundation for a greener, more modern city will be laid in the three years from 2010 to 2012 under the "3901" Action Plan that calls for “building three green systems: production, consumption and environment; carrying out nine green projects, and optimising ten mechanisms.”

Three Green Systems for Production, Consumption, Environment  

First among the three green systems is the Green Production System, followed by a Green Consumption System and Green Environment System.

The Action Plan calls for promoting the development of high-end industries and clean production procedures while elimination high energy-consuming, highly polluting industries.

High-end industrial development is as follows:

•     The city will accelerate the development of the modern financial, information, technology-intensive, cultural and creative, convention and exhibition industries and logistics. Also to be improved are services concerning people’s daily existence: health care, sports and fitness, community services and education and training. The authorities will focus on low-carbon services industry, including energy-efficient environmental protection technology services, eco-project consultation and carbon trading. Multi-national companies, domestic and overseas financial institutions, large enterprises and groups will be encouraged to establish headquarters and R&D operational centres and logistical centres in the capital.

•     The city will upgrade the structure of its manufacturing industry by giving priority to the development of the electronic information, automobiles, equipment manufacturing and eco-medicine sectors, will emphasize mobile communications, digital televisions, liquid crystal displays, integrated-electrical circuits, new-energy vehicles, rail transit, and new types of vaccines.  

•     The city will work harder to develop electrically powered cars, new kinds of batteries, new types of solar energy devices and components, new heat-pump units, sewage and solid waste treatment technologies and equipment. It will emphasize new-energy vehicles, solar energy R&D and high-end manufacturing advantages and improve R&D and engineering services concerning bio-energy, nuclear power, geothermal and wind energies and create products and technologies involving integrated solutions.

•     More effort will be made to develop green urban agriculture by promoting seed breading, leisure activities in suburban Beijing, the flower industry, special fruit and organic vegetables and improve agricultural-product processing and logistics.

In the Action Plan, strengthening clean-production procedures is listed as an element of the Green Production System, wherein the government encourages enterprises to produce high-energy, recyclable products and to use recyclable or degradable packaging materials; to monitor highly polluting enterprises and to ensure that their polluting emissions are controlled and in line with standards.

Eliminating high energy-consuming and highly polluting industries is another Green Production System requirement. Departures from the city of highly polluting companies will continue in the coming three years and highly polluting, high energy-consuming and high water-consuming equipment and technologies will be phased out.

The Green Consumption System is the second system of the “3”: this means green administration, green businesses and green living.

•     “Green administration” means the Beijing Municipal Government will buy energy-efficient products for the administration’s use, optimize information sharing and exchange platforms so as to promote electronic administration and reduce costs, and to reduce the consumption of electricity, water, paper, and energy supplies.

•     The “Green business” concept encourages enterprises to consider the content of their marketing and e-commerce activities and increase the ratio of electronic logistics, operations and management and to minimize their consumption of energy.

           It encourages the development of a new business culture, including online trading and cyber shopping centres. Logistics companies should use modern, energy-efficient equipment and share third-party services. Companies and organizations should seek to retrieve used products when selling new ones for the sake of the recycling.  

           “Green business” practices involve limiting the use of plastic shopping bags and over-packaging as well as the building of food tracing systems to guarantee the security of the food on the market.

•     Residents will be encouraged to be economical in using energy and water; to collect materials for recycling; to use public transportation, ride bicycles and walk when possible; adjust the temperatures of air-conditioners in accord with national standards; and to turn off lights when not needed and sort garbage.

            Smokers are encouraged to stop smoking in public places.

In addition, the Action Plan encourages residents to buy and use high-energy, low-polluting products, such as environmentally friendly batteries, green foods, green furniture and to use air-conditioners or refrigerators rated at Grade II for energy-efficiency. Water-efficient products, including water cleaners and washing machines and low-emission and small-engine-powered cars are encouraged. Recyclable shopping bags are encouraged for use. The use of disposable dishware and other disposable products for daily use is discouraged.

The Green Environment System will make Beijing a city more congenial to live in.

•     More green areas and free leisure parks will be built in urban and rural areas, and agricultural tourism will be promoted in mountainous areas; more trees are to be planted on bare hills to improve water absorption and reduce soil erosion and to absorb carbon from the air.

•     Water-resource protection is stressed in the Action Plan. Large farms will be moved out of protected areas in watersheds. The task set to be fulfilled by 2012 includes building of waste treatment plants and the renovation of latrines into toilets that meet hygienic standards; construction projects and economic activities there will be more strictly controlled. The construction of water conservancy projects will be used to regulate, store and transmit rainwater for the improvement of water-resource allocations, flood control and disaster reduction.

•     Priority will be given to controlling noise pollution, car emissions, dust from construction sites, and sand and dust from arid areas surrounding Beijing. Noise controls will focus on food, drinking, entertainment and commercial establishments. The use of green building materials will be encouraged to stem indoor air pollution; efforts will be made to ensure that indoor air-conditioning systems are more useful in cleaning indoor air via ventilation systems.

Nine Projects Enhance Green Development Capabilities

The Action Plan outlines nine projects: energy, construction, transportation, atmospheric, solid waste, water and the eco-environment as key development targets for Beijing in the period 2010 to 2012.

•     Beijing will: build more wind-power and solar-energy stations along with photovoltaic power stations to provide energy for water heating, campus and park lighting. Use of natural gas will be increased. 

•     The city will: enforce a set of local energy efficiency standards for structures that are more stringent than the national ones. It will rebuild heating systems and replace electricity-consuming equipment of current buildings so they meet stricter energy-efficiency standards.

•     The city will: speed up construction of the subway/light-rail system so that by 2012 the combined length of Beijing’s subway lines will be 420 kilometres; build more roads connecting urban and rural areas; create more bus lanes; solve traffic-jams at intersections in urban and rural areas. It will use more hybrid vehicles for public services, including public transportation, municipal environment cleaning and taxis; speed up the construction of the stations for vehicle recharging and natural-gas refilling; install gasoline-efficient equipment in public services vehicles; upgrade bicycle lanes along the roads and build parking lots for bicycles at busy commercial streets, making it convenient to transfer between cycling and public transportation; encourage bicycle leasing.

•     The city will: promote energy-efficient technologies and products such as central air-conditioning, industrial engines and intelligent management. It will improve industrial air-cleaning equipmnet, promote membrane treatment of water, rainwater collection, agricultural water-saving and intelligent water-saving systems in the areas of water-resource treatment and use. With regard to waste treatment and its comprehensive use, focuses are the promotion of waste incineration power generation, the production of construction waste materials, landfill gas collection, leachate treatment, waste PET bottle recycling and the waste disposal of electronic products and related technologies.

Air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, flat-panel TVs, microwave ovens, rice cookers, induction cookers, water heaters, computer monitors, motors and other products in 10 categories of Grade II and above energy efficiency are encouraged for use; enterprises are encouraged to use high-performance three-phase asynchronous motors, high-voltage motors, AC and DC permanent-magnet motors, amorphous and amorphous transformers and other modern electrical products.

The integrated use of disposed wastes as resources: refine and standardize garbage classification standards; optimise waste sorting facilities, set up 13 recyclable-resource professional sorting centres and support related transportation groups; start the construction of four daily waste comprehensive treatment plants and use the circular economic park.

For the development of the resources recycling industry, information exchange networks are encouraged to improve to enhance information exchanges and material flows concerning waste resources; a number of resource integrated-use projects are to be supported, including some related to the use of discarded home appliances and dismantled vehicles and recycling, treatment of waste plastics, tires, paper, gardening waste, sludge and construction wastes. The use of recycled waste-tire-crumb asphalt, recycled fibres and recycled building materials will also be encouraged.

•     Pollutants and emissions from boilers and vehicles will be strictly controlled. All sub-standard coal-fired boilers are to be put under control and ungraded; dust-bag cleaning technologies are being promoted for use at coal-fired boilers.

•     The denitrification of coal-fired regional heating boilers, gas-fired power plants and cement plant in the remote suburban districts are a focus; the withdrawal of yellow-labelled vehicles, vehicles produced in the late 1990s that fail to meet the minimum emission standards, will be continued and old-style high-emissions vehicles will be retired earlier than in the past. The municipal government encourages enterprises to establish low-emission or zero-emission “green vehicle teams”: a fleet of 30,000 clean vehicles, it is hoped, will be available for logistical purposes in the city by 2012. One goal is to ensure that all newly bought vehicles meet the Guobiao V (Chinese national standard of vehicle emission which equals the standard of Euro V) emission standard; pollutants from asphalt waterproofing membrane production lines and the chemical, painting, printing and garment dry-cleaning industries and construction sites will also be subjected to strict controls.

•     Recycling water resources will continue to enforce the protection of the surface waters of and along the reservoirs around Beijing including the Miyun, Guanting and Huairou reservoirs; start controlling and developing the eight rivers in Huairou District and in Miyun and Yanqing Counties in northern Beijing. Work will continue to improve the sharing by Beijing and neighbouring Hebei Province of water from the upper reaches of the rivers that feed into the Miyun and Huairou reservoirs. This is meant to ensure an adequate and safe supply of water for both. 

Water conservation will no longer refer to preserving water only, but to how it is used; more efficient water use will be promoted by using farming techniques, drip irrigation and more efficient water-handling equipment.

Existing waste water treatment plants will be upgraded or reconstructed to make them more efficient renewable-water plants with a higher capacity. The construction of already-begun waste water treatment plants will be completed, and, by 2012, the city will be able to treat 3.5 million tons of waste water a day.

By 2012, more than 30 percent of the water used by industries will be recycled water. Recycled water will also be used for landscaping.

•     The natural landscapes and structures found in the Yanshan and Taihang Mountain will serve as a canvas for the greening of barren hills, the comprehensive management of abandoned mines and an improvement in forest coverage to enhance the forests’ carbon-absorbing and green eco-barrier functions. By 2012, 39 percent of Beijing will be covered in forests and the urban greening rate will increase to 45.5 percent. Existing parks will be planted with more trees. 

•     Beijing will become a “green model” for other Chinese cities based on its experience as one among the first groups of circular-economy pilot cities. It will speed the development of its environmental and green industries, construct low-carbon functional areas and business centres, advance the construction of circular-economic pilot areas, including Haidian District in western Beijing, Yanqing County and Changping District in northern Beijing, and begin building three to five more pilot areas. The city will strengthen its instructions on the construction of ecological industrial parks and build three to five demonstration parks. It will strive for the construction of 30 to 50 circular-economy pilot enterprises in support of concerned leading enterprises and begin pilot projects at cement kilns for waste and sludge treatment, at plants for heating, cooling and electricity supplies, as well as in connection with using recycled resources.

China’s capital will also create green consumption models in public places, schools, communities, households and among the people. By 2012, Beijing will have ten Golden Leaf Green Hotels, a group of national-level or city-level green schools, five national-level and 50 city-level green communities, and it will begin the construction of low-carbon ecological communities in Shijingshan District in western Beijing. 

Ten Mechanisms Guarantee Implementation

To guarantee the Green Beijing Action Plan is carried out smoothly, ten mechanisms are listed as guidance for organizational leadership, regulations, standards, pricing, taxation, finance, technology, services and supervision.

•     Organization and leadership mechanism: the city’s Leading Group for Dealing with Climate Change and Energy Savings is responsible for the construction of “Green Beijing” and relevant co-ordination work, focusing on solving the problems that arise during the implementation process of the Action Plan. The group will develop appropriate policies to ensure the smooth implementation of the Action Plan. Each district, county and department must consider the building of “Green Beijing” an important item on their agendas; define, in detail, the tasks required to ensure the success of Action Plan implementation.

•     Beijing is to modify and issue measures for implementation of the Energy Conservation Law of the People’s Republic of China and the Water Pollution Prevention and Treatment Ordinance of Beijing and strictly carry out the Implementary Measures of the Soil and Water Conservation Law of the People’s Republic of China and enforce the supervision the soil and water conservation of the exploitation and construction projects; to publish and implement the Beijing Climate Change Programme, to strengthen the assurance of the policy for the development of renewable resources and to publish relevant policies and measures.

•     Standard access mechanism: the national standard, industrial standard and local standard concerning energy-savings and polluting emissions are to be vigorously implemented and some local standards for the building of Green Beijing are also to be made. The circular economy index system is to be optimized; improving standards of the green industry, creating a standard systematic carbon emissions index and the production, measurement and trading of carbon sinks are to be encouraged.

•     Price control mechanism: the prices of wind power, waste treatment power, garbage power and solar power are to be decided; policies for water rationing and incentives for water-saving are to be optimized; the charges for sewage and waste water treatment will be gradually increased. In accord with price-control policies governing businesses that are limited or banned in the city, if they use natural water, high-price policies will apply to them; if they use recycled water, they will be charged lower water prices; the heating price system will be completed to charge consumers according to the amount of heat they use. Fees for waste treatment will be adjusted when appropriate; methods for garbage metering and fees will be explored; parking tolls systems will be created to suit different regions and times.  

•     The Beijing Municipal Government will invest more in support of Green Beijing’s construction and will adopt tax and incentive policies to encourage energy-efficiency and emissions reductions. It will set up a Beijing Green Industry Development Investment Fund to strengthen the creation of market-based financial services concerning environmental exchanges and forest-rights exchanges. It will encourage financial institutions to adopt green credit, green insurance and green securities policies and lend more financial support to new-energy and environmental-protection industries. It will conduct research into carbon trading and into the provision of insurance and reinsurance for natural, climate-related disasters.

•     Municipal authorities are required to understand and develop the relationship between the Green Beijing Action Plan and the Science Beijing Action Plan (2009–2012) and make full use of the preferential policies given to the Zhongguancun National Innovation Model Park to increase support for technological R&D in new-energy and energy-saving environmental protection industries and to fund the National Engineering Laboratory, National Engineering Research Centre and  Technical Centre, which have been supported by enterprises. The government encourages alliances among new-technology firms and the cultivation of an energy-saving environmental protection market to industrialize relevant technologies. To increase financial support, it will increase the government-backed Zhongguancun’s procurement of green products arising from independent innovation efforts. 

•     Beijing will publish the Guidance to the Promotion of Energy-Saving Services Industry Development to guide the related services market; probe the indexed trading of energy-savings and water-savings and begin trial use of sulphur dioxide and water pollutant-oriented emissions trading; cultivate and support a group of strong services institutions that own core technologies in energy-saving technologies and methods to provide third-party services related to auditing, diagnosing, designing, funding, rebuilding, operating and managing energy and water-savings restructuring in the industrial, construction and transportation sectors. 

•     Examination of the energy-saving index, the Green Beijing statistical system and the supervision platform are all listed under the Action Plan to offer guidance.

•     International and regional cooperation is planned to ensure getting financial support from international organizations and from regions around Beijing.

•     The China (Beijing) International Energy-Saving and Environmental Protection Exhibition is to be continued and regular promotion activities such as “Energy-Saving Police,” “Energy-Saving Doctor,” “Energy-Saving Angel,” will be boosted. Newspapers, film and television will be used to publicise models for energy-saving, to reinforce the promotion of “Earth Day,” “World Water Day” and other energy-saving and environmental protection activities, along with “voluntary tree-planting,” “Global No Drive Days” and “Renewable Resource Recycling Days” that are to be encouraged for citywide residents’ participation.

         Environmental protection and energy-saving related training and education will be offered in schools, communities and organizations, hence the whole society. Tree plantings and carbon-sink purchases are encouraged.