Rocky Mountain Institute Releases Report Showcasing New Complete Zero Emission System Demonstration Concept

A vision of green urbanization towards carbon neutrality

Beijing / PRNewswire / - Today, the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) has published a new report entitled Whole-System Zero-Emission Demonstration: China's Vision on Future Green Urbanization , by introducing a new concept- all the zero emission demonstration system (WS-ZED). WS-ZED will help Chinese cities implement the country's latest announcement on "peak carbon 2030" and "carbon neutrality 2060" promises. The report provides a theoretical framework and a system of quantitative indicators to decouple green economic growth from carbon emissions, waste and pollution in cities.

As Chinese cities go through a period of economic transformation, they simultaneously face the challenges of carbon emissions, waste management and pollution control. Fortunately, China has accumulated rich experiences in managing urban growth over the past 40 years, under complex natural geography and diverse social conditions.

At the same time, the world's urban population is expected to grow by 2.5 billion by 2050, and the main driver of the new urbanization cycle is the global division of labor and industrial transfer. As a result, emerging economies' carbon emissions are often linked to exports, while waste and pollution remain a national problem. These three questions seriously affect the daily life of populations.

By tackling these three challenges together for the first time, the WS-ZED concept goes beyond zero carbon and offers a broader concept to reveal the added value of the synergy between zero carbon, zero waste and zero pollution. This new concept aims to solve these growth challenges by adopting a holistic approach to implement urban management policies in order to fight both against climate change and environmental degradation.

This new concept has been strongly adopted by the market and policy makers in China. The RMI contributes to 14 eBeijing administrative area five-year plan (Tongzhou district) by introducing the WS-ZED concept. The Beijing Future Science City of Changping District, which is home to the research divisions of several state-owned enterprises in the energy sector, cited WS-ZED in its integrated energy planning document to support its strategic goal of establishing a global Energy Valley and attracting energy innovation pioneers from around the world. Areas like Tongzhou and Changping are typical examples of urban development areas that demonstrate bottom-up efforts towards carbon neutrality in line with and in support of China's national commitment.

To read the full report, visit the RMI website at: https://rmi.org/insight/whole-system-zero-emissions-demonstration/