Part 1: Air Quality
Perhaps it is because air quality is so visible, and the differences in China are so wide, environmental reports tend to start here. Devoting nearly 20 pages to the topic, I must give the authors credit for thoroughness and putting together compelling data showing that Shanghai’s efforts to improve the air quality have worked. That through steps of desulfurizing coal plants, moving industry out of Shanghai, and taking out old equipment, significant progress was made at the core. However, as the graph below suggests, there are problems still exist in the areas of construction and transportation.

Some of the more interesting analysis that I found within the chapter though is in their effort to show that Shanghai has been able to debunk the myth that the environment must be sacrificed in a period of high economic development:

Development doesn’t necessarily come at the expense of the environment as demonstrated by the last ten years of development in Shanghai. While steadily stabilizing or gradually reducing pollutants are not considered a big deal in advanced economies, the fact that Shanghai can even achieve this should not be taken lightly.

A conclusion that is supported by the graph to the right, and one that I have a problem with as it completely fails to take into account the bigger air quality picture for the area, and the impact on other surrounding areas in jiangsu and Zhejiang of Shanghai’s Expo policies.  A huge snafu if you ask me.

Part 2: Transportation

The second part of the report is part infrastructure, part technology, and part regulation, and it starts off with a BOLD statement of the progress made:

In order to meet the long term transport demand of its citizens, Shanghai used Expo 2010 as an
opportunity to fundamentally transform its transport infrastructure and to curb emissions from its
motor vehicles. The transport measures taken include:

• Prioritize the development of environment-friendly public transportation
• Develop an extensive network of rapid transit
• Strengthen public bus services
• Promote clean energy vehicles and ensure that all public transportation inside the Expo
• 2010 site will be with zero emission
• Control the growth in the number of motor vehicles
• Tighten emission standards and improve their enforcement for motor vehicles
• Speed up the phasing out of obsolete vehicles

Starting with an analysis of the public transportation system of Shanghai, the report does a fair job of reporting the facts and the improvements being made. Shanghai has, in my time in China, been the most advanced in this area in terms of the planning that went into their metro and bus systems, and in meetings with Urban Planning Officials it was clear that they had targets for Expo and Post-Expo.  Targets that would eventually create the most robust systems worldwide as there are to be 500km of track by MAy 2010, aand 1000km of track by 2015

Some other impovements for Expo that the report highlights are:

Public transportation accounts for more than 65 per cent of the motorized passenger volume;

Urban areas in Shanghai are to be fully covered by public transport stations with a service radius of less than 500 metres

All point-to-point commuting by public transportation within the inner city is to be achieved within one hour

Passengers can be connected to the rapid transit network from satellite cities and suburban areas by one additional ride.

The next focus of the report is alternative commercial vehicles being used in Shanghai that will support Shanghai during the Expo (I have added the numbers):

Shanghai is putting several types of new energy vehicles into commercial operation on the street, including supercapacitor trolleybuses (14 in use), all-electric buses (80 in use), hydrogen fuel cell buses (3 in Beijing), and hybrid buses (in use on Line 92B- Where is that?). All these different new energy technologies were locally researched and developed in China.

The report mentions that up to 20% of the Beijing Games fleet was alternative, and goes on to show that around 250 vehicles of an “alternative nature” will be used to support the Expo. I have heard that the majority of these vehicles will be found on the Expo site itself, which would certainly support any future Expo footprint analysis, but could hinder any wider benefit analysis.

Part 3 is perhaps the most interesting section as it deals with the regulatory environment, emission control procedures, and the threat of car free days. I won’t spend a lot of time on this as (1) Beijing proves that implementing these measures is effective to managing short term emissions and (2) that the real importance of these measures is what happens after, and at the end of the day I believe that China’s national level policies towards raising emission standards , providing incentives, and removing cars from the road will have a much greater long term effect.

We should all be happy that coal fired plants like this one are being removed, and that is essentially the crux of this chapter

In order to achieve the target set by the central government’s eleventh Five-year plan, Shanghai launched the implementation Plan of the Shanghai Energy-conservation and Emission-reduction Programme. According to this plan, about 3,000 older and polluting industrial projects were to be upgraded or closed down from 2006-2010 to save three million TCE. So far, more than 2,000 factories have been shut down.

Energy intensive industries were the major targets of this programme. At least 14 cement factories, four ferroalloy factories and 14 steel refineries should be shut down by 2010.

All GOOD NEWS…

Through the 20 pages, this chapter focuses on the history of Shanghai’s Coal dependency, Energy Efficiency, and Renewable Energies, and its coverage is quite comprehensive as it looks into both the supply side and demand side of energy, with several sections devoted to the use of Solar, wind, and geothermal. It is a sectino that I see as important as it shows that the general line of trajectory is a good one, and that real actions have been taken to REMOVE old equipment, promote new investments, and address structural issues (issues that these projects have sought to address), and one of the most impressive “facts” that the report highlighted was that

By 2010, there will be three million m2 of building space in Shanghai participating in the large-scale demonstration of new energy-saving technologies, efficiency measures and building-integrated utilization of renewable energy (see Figure 4.6). These buildings with the latest efficiency standards will include the main pavilions at the Expo site, new and renovated government office buildings, and residential housing (see Box 4.2)

It is an interesting chapter that certainly selects data on some levels, use of renewable energies, while avoiding the harder questions surrounding the efficiencies of buildings in general (particularly those not on the Expo site), however even with that over site the arrows are all pointed in the right direction. Shanghai has gone a long way to remove the dirtiest power supplies with cleaner technologies, and there is a lot to be said for that. As more of the wind farms are brought online, and as more technologies are proven, it will only make it easier going forward to implement more reforms and continue advances made on energy intensities. A number everyone seems to look at these days.

Part 4: Waste

Perhaps one of the least publicly discussed areas of China’s fight to improve its environment, I particularly like seeing it included as Shanghai has a huge problem with solid waste (see figure 5.2), waste that is rummage through by an active trope of recyclers, but waste that is piling up… fast

At the Shanghai level, the report covers landfills, incinerators, and mechanical-biological treatment (MBT) Plants, and the report points out that Shanghai has some serious issues with landfills leaking and incinerators emitting. The MBT plants mentioned are seen as Shanghai’s high point as they are “viewed as more sustainable”, but there are clearly not enough.

The chapter winds up with a chipper bit about the Expo related waste:

Shanghai is committed to achieving a 100 per cent collection rate for construction and domestic solid waste generated inside the Expo Park. It has also promised 50 per cent reuse rate of the waste. Wastes are to be sorted, classified, and then transferred to the municipal network of treatment facilities for utilization or safe disposal.

.. and a strong recommendation for developing much stronger waste avoidance strategies:

It should be clear that it is not possible for Shanghai, and indeed any city in the world, to build endless treatment capacity for ever-growing municipal waste. The only sustainable solution is avoidance and reduction at source. It is also important to have separate waste collection for better recycling. While it is important to build and operate safe treatment facilities, it is perhaps equally important, if not more important, to progressively avoid and reduce waste generation

UNEP recommends that Shanghai develops a comprehensive waste-reduction programme and considers developing a long term programme towards zero-waste vision and related policies. This is in line with the ecological and circular economy concepts the central government of China has recently been promoting.

Part 5: Water

Unlike the parched Beijing, Shanghai is flush with water, water that has a number of quality issues that continue to present the municipal government with headaches. It is a condition that has clearly improved as investments have been made to clean up water at the source (huangpu river and Chenghang Reservoir), however the current sources of quality issues are going to be more difficult to solve as they are rooted in Shanghai’s aging water distribution system.

Second to the quality of the water, and the related issues, the report spent a few interesting pages on sewage treatment capabilities, and the numbers are scary:

In 2000, Shanghai’s treatment plants only treated 55 per cent of the city’s sewage. Since then, the municipality has been improving its sewage treatment infrastructure [。。。]By the end of 2008, Shanghai had constructed 50 sewerage treatment plants, with a total treatment capacity of 6.72 million m3/d. This capacity enables the municipality to treat 75.5 per cent of its sewage (see Figure 6.4). For urban areas the treatment rate is 85.8 per cent, while that of the rural areas is 52.8 per cent.

Third major issue was algae, which have never made it into the press (surprise surprise), but through the report we learn that these blooms are an issue Shanghai is contending with:

In recent years, large-scale water hyacinth blooms in the upper stretches of Huangpu River became more extensive and frequent. For example, in the winter of 2008-2009, 166,000 tons of water hyacinth was taken out the waterways. During the summer, duckweed blooms affected Shanghai instead. For example, in June 2008, a gigantic oating belt of duckweed 10 km long gathered in the upstream of Huangpu River. In June 2009, as this report was being written, massive duckweed reappeared again, covering an area as big as 390,000 m2 in the Jinshan area

Part 6: Greenspaces

At pages, this was the thinnest part of the report, but perhaps was the one section that was almost all good news:

By 2008, Shanghai’s greening rate increased to 38 per cent, almost double that of 2000. The urban green coverage area per capita increased to 12.5 m2, compared to 4.6 m2 in 2000 and 1.0 m2 in 1990. This means that in less then three decades every Shanghai citizen enjoys 12 times more of public green space (see Figure 7.1). By 2010, the urban greening rate is expected to reach 40 per cent.

My Thoughts thus far
At this point, I would say that the author has done an excellent job of covering a lot of topics and areas important to “sustainable” urban development and showing how things in Shanghai have improved, and it should be required reading for many others in China as they plan their cities.

Simply put, a lot has been accomplished in terms of cleaning up Shanghai’s air (historically better then the other gateway cities), green space, and water quality… and improvements in the quality of the infrastructure will support Shanghai over the long term.

However, I am troubled by the constant assertion that the Expo lead to the political will behind most of these “changes”.

Yes, it is clear the Expo has provided a clear goalpost for many involved, but my own conversations and my own experiences lead me to believe that Expo is one of the earlier goal posts. That the improvements being made are simply Stage 2 of a 5 stage act that will integrate the regional economies. Which brings me to my second issue. Little reference has been made to this point about the impact of Shanghai’s “Better city, Better Life” campaign has had outside the city limits.  This for me is perhaps a more important point looking long term, and I truly hope that in future assessments more attention will be paid to this point given the fact that while Shanghai may be living the BEtter City BEtter Life dream… China is still really living by the codes of One World One Dream.