Shanghai, the host city of Expo 2010, will offer a glimpse of a greener future, Achim Steiner, Under Secretary General of the United Nations, said August 18.
China's green efforts were highly spoken of in the "UNEP Environmental Assessment Expo 2010 Shanghai China" which was unveiled Tuesday, 256 days before the opening of Shanghai World Expo.
"Shanghai has in the last ten years taken the Expo as a driver and taken a significant increase in efforts and progress in environmental policy and pollution," said Steiner, who also serves as the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The experience of Shanghai in handling environmental issues provided valuable examples and lessons for other cities in China and worldwide, he added.
The assessment report covers nine areas including air quality, transportation, energy, solid waste, water and public participation.
From 1997 to 2008, Shanghai had upgraded 5,975 coal-boilers to use cleaner energy, such as natural gas, creating a "coal-free zone" of 666 square kilometers.
Between 2005 and June 2009, Shanghai installed flue gas desulphurization devices for all the coal-fired power units with a total capacity of more than 10 million kilowatts.
Meanwhile, small and insufficient coal-fired plants with a total capacity of 695,000 kilowatts had been shut down, including the Nanshi Power Plant, located inside the Expo site.
The Expo will be held from May 1 to October 31, 2010. Shanghai had an average of 63 days with "excellent" air quality during the same periods from 2006 to 2008.
In 2008, the city enjoyed 328 days of "excellent" or "good" air quality, among which 101 days had "excellent" air quality, up by 68 percent compared with five years ago.
The air quality ranking in China's mainland is based on the Air Pollution Index (API), which is decided by the level of five atmospheric pollutants, including CO, SO2, NO2, PM10 and ozone.
