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Hard to walk the walk on public transport
By Tian Ying and Fu Shuangqi |
January 13, 2010, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
ON the wall in a Beijing subway Line 4 station, a dozen posters feature beautiful scenes at risk of destruction by climate change, such as arctic ice-caps and colonies of penguins. The posters read, "Low-carbon life, walk your talk."
Recently, there has been much talk about climate change in China. Awareness-raising ads like the subway posters are common in public places and on the Internet. Yet, even though ordinary urban Chinese are aware of the problem, it is not easy for many of them to walk the talk.
Professor Chen Ying considers herself very climate-conscious. She works for the Beijing-based Research Center for Sustainable Development under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a climate change think-tank.
Chen cited household heating as an example. "I want to turn my heating down but I can't, simply because the system was not designed to be adjustable," she said.
In China, central heating is supplied by thermal power stations and community boilers, and channeled to households with little regard to user demand. Users are charged according to the area of their apartment, rather than actual consumption.
An increasing number of real estate projects have installed household adjustable gas heaters with thermostats in the last two years, but the majority of families still have non-adjustable central heating.
"In China, the infrastructure in many fields does not support a low-carbon lifestyle," Chen said. In many aspects of everyday life, from heating to garbage recycling, people do not have the necessary technology or economic incentive to decrease their carbon output, she said.
There are cases where people do have choices but they still opt out of decreasing their carbon usage for understandable reasons.
Yan Qiang, a 30-year-old bank employee, seldom takes public transport after buying a car. "I cannot stand Beijing's public transport system," he said. "The subway's reach is limited. Buses are very unpredictable, crowded, hot in summer and freezing in winter."
Commuters are frustrated by the poor design of subway transfers. "You have to walk more than 10 minutes to transfer from Line 2 to Line 13 at Xizhimen Station. It is really annoying," Yan said.
As most subway lines and buses close at 11pm, late sleepers like Yan would prefer driving when he hangs out with friends late at night.
Li Xun, secretary-general of the Chinese Society for Urban Studies, said: "Chinese used to lead a low-carbon life when the country was not so developed. Now, with cost no longer being a big concern, people can afford a more comfortable life." If public services are not that good, it's easy for high-income earners to turn away from leading a low-carbon life, he said.
Despite the government campaign to promote public transport and bicycles, the number of vehicles on the roads has continued to increase. "Big city authorities have missed a good chance to promote public transport," Li said. "Beijing should have built more subway lines 10 years ago. Now the situation is like opening Pandora's box."
The city's roads are no longer easy for pedestrians and bikers to use. Wang Xiaojun, chief media officer with Green Peace's Beijing office, bikes 30 to 40 minutes to work every day.
The ride is neither comfortable nor safe. "Cars turn right arbitrarily at intersections, putting bikers' safety at risk," he said.
However, he sticks to biking and taking the subway occasionally to reduce his carbon footprint. "Taking public transport is not always perfectly comfortable. It will take time for it to improve, but we'd better act now."
(The authors are Xinhua writers.)
Recently, there has been much talk about climate change in China. Awareness-raising ads like the subway posters are common in public places and on the Internet. Yet, even though ordinary urban Chinese are aware of the problem, it is not easy for many of them to walk the talk.
Professor Chen Ying considers herself very climate-conscious. She works for the Beijing-based Research Center for Sustainable Development under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a climate change think-tank.
Chen cited household heating as an example. "I want to turn my heating down but I can't, simply because the system was not designed to be adjustable," she said.
In China, central heating is supplied by thermal power stations and community boilers, and channeled to households with little regard to user demand. Users are charged according to the area of their apartment, rather than actual consumption.
An increasing number of real estate projects have installed household adjustable gas heaters with thermostats in the last two years, but the majority of families still have non-adjustable central heating.
"In China, the infrastructure in many fields does not support a low-carbon lifestyle," Chen said. In many aspects of everyday life, from heating to garbage recycling, people do not have the necessary technology or economic incentive to decrease their carbon output, she said.
There are cases where people do have choices but they still opt out of decreasing their carbon usage for understandable reasons.
Yan Qiang, a 30-year-old bank employee, seldom takes public transport after buying a car. "I cannot stand Beijing's public transport system," he said. "The subway's reach is limited. Buses are very unpredictable, crowded, hot in summer and freezing in winter."
Commuters are frustrated by the poor design of subway transfers. "You have to walk more than 10 minutes to transfer from Line 2 to Line 13 at Xizhimen Station. It is really annoying," Yan said.
As most subway lines and buses close at 11pm, late sleepers like Yan would prefer driving when he hangs out with friends late at night.
Li Xun, secretary-general of the Chinese Society for Urban Studies, said: "Chinese used to lead a low-carbon life when the country was not so developed. Now, with cost no longer being a big concern, people can afford a more comfortable life." If public services are not that good, it's easy for high-income earners to turn away from leading a low-carbon life, he said.
Despite the government campaign to promote public transport and bicycles, the number of vehicles on the roads has continued to increase. "Big city authorities have missed a good chance to promote public transport," Li said. "Beijing should have built more subway lines 10 years ago. Now the situation is like opening Pandora's box."
The city's roads are no longer easy for pedestrians and bikers to use. Wang Xiaojun, chief media officer with Green Peace's Beijing office, bikes 30 to 40 minutes to work every day.
The ride is neither comfortable nor safe. "Cars turn right arbitrarily at intersections, putting bikers' safety at risk," he said.
However, he sticks to biking and taking the subway occasionally to reduce his carbon footprint. "Taking public transport is not always perfectly comfortable. It will take time for it to improve, but we'd better act now."
(The authors are Xinhua writers.)
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