metropolis mag: is china ready to embrace sustainability?

interesting article in metropolis:

Over the next two decades, China’s urban population is projected to increase by 250 million people; these city dwellers use up to 3.5 times more energy than rural denizens.
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Some of the plan’s objectives are outright astonishing. For example, Qiu Baoxing, vice minister of the Ministry of Construction, People’s Republic of China, told the conference’s 6000 attendees that by the end of 2010, all Chinese cities will be expected to reduce their buildings’ energy use by 50 percent; by 2020, that figure will be 65 percent. Furthermore, by 2010, 25 percent of existing residential and public buildings in the country’s large cities will be retrofitted to be greener; that number will be 15 percent in medium-sized cities and 10 percent in small cities. Over 80 million square meters of building space will be powered using solar and other renewable energies.

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