Shenzhen is the window to China's reform and opening up.
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With a continuously expanding economy and fast evolving science and technologies, Shenzhen is upgrading its industries to promote an environment-friendly lifestyle and low-carbon growth.
Shenzhen is an ecological garden city, with half of its total area under a form of environmental protection that bans construction. The urban greenbelt coverage is 45.07%. Shenzhen is China’s first city to win the Nations in Bloom Award, and named on the United Nations Environment Program’s Global 500 Laureate Roll of Honor.
About half of Shenzhen’s total area is within a nature protection zone for suburban parks. Forests cover 41.2% of the city’s total land.
In 2015, Shenzhen achieved the emission reduction target, set by Guangdong Province, of four major pollutants, namely chemical oxygen demand, ammonia nitrogen, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen. The emission reduction of chemical oxygen demand, ammonia nitrogen and sulfur dioxide also met ahead of time the target set by the 12th Five-Year Plan for Energy Saving and Emission Reduction. The city’s water consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP fell by 43%.
The city has promoted the usage of renewable energy such as solar power and garbage power. There are seven garbage incineration power plants and they generated 978,000,000 kilowatt-hours in 2015, making Shenzhen a national leader in the use of renewable energy.
Shenzhen fully adopted the national IV and up emission standards and promoted the use of gasoline meeting the national V emission standard across the city. Over 28,000 new-energy vehicles were put into use by 2015 and won the city the Urban Transportation Leadership Award.
By April 13, 2016, the total volume transaction of carbon emission reached 400 million yuan and the transaction was over 10 million tons.
Last year, several activities focusing on promoting low-carbon lifestyle have been held. Citizens were encouraged to participate in events such as low-carbon cycling, visiting environment-friendly buildings and Earth Hour. In 2015, over 11.37 million square meters of environmental-friendly buildings were completed in Shenzhen, adding up to 33 million square meters in total. The number and scale of environmentally-friendly buildings of Shenzhen continues to top the nation’s large cities.
In 2015, the city’s air quality reached Level 2 of the national standards. A total of 340 days were rated as “good” or “basically good.” Drinking water quality reached the national standards. Standards were met for 100% of the drinking water in the city’s major reservoirs. The non-hazardous treatment rate of urban waste was 100%.
Shenzhen, dubbed City of Parks, has a pleasant natural environment. It has 889 parks which cover 181 square kilometers. The urban greenbelt coverage is 45.07%. The per capita green land was 16.84 square meters. Shenzhen has won domestic and international awards and recognitions including Nations in Bloom, UNEP’s Global 500 Laureate Roll of Honor, National Hygienic City, National Model City for Environmental Protection, Model City for Protection of the Ozone Layer, National Greenery Model City and National Brilliant Tourism City.
Shenzhen built greenways totaling 2,400 kilometers in length in 2015. The ecological landscape belt, which is 187.2 kilometers long and covers 2,638 hectares, was finished. Shenzhen plans to spend 2 billion yuan in total on community park construction and build 300 community parks till 2018, increasing the coverage of park greenbelt service to 95% and the coverage of tree-lined roads to 95.6%.