Greening China's Urbanization Boom

With an average GDP rate of 10 percent for the past thirty years, China's economic boom has brought millions out of poverty and fueled a rate of urbanization that is faster than any country in human history. Between 1980 and 2008, China's urbanization rate rose from 20 to 44.9 percent, with the current urban population reaching slightly over 600 million. Buildings consume one-quarter of the China's total energy, and this fraction will expand considerably as the government pushes forward policies to urbanize another 350 million over the next twenty years.

Today, China's buildings consume more energy than the country's three largest heavy industries—iron, steel, and cement—combined. Expanding the energy analysis to include the materials used to construct these buildings highlights how the energy and CO2 footprint of the China's buildings sector is enormous and growing.

Speakers at this CEF meeting will discuss trends in building energy efficiency in China and introduce successful U.S.-China partnerships that are helping China adopt greener building standards, benchmarks and policies.