Preface

The development of low-carbon economy requires both theoretical guidance and practical solutions. Cities are the major agents to achieve national economic development, hence national goals of low-carbon economy development will eventually need to break down to city level and cannot be achieved without concrete implementation of low-carbon urban construction of the cities. With the domestic low-carbon pilot provinces and cities booming, more and more cities began to put forward low-carbon development plans and policies based on their characteristics. However, with all the different understanding of the concept of low-carbon city and unguided practice, there is an urgent need to develop a comprehensive evaluation indicator system.

Since 2008, Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies in Chinese Academy of Social Sciences took the lead in China's low-carbon city indicator system researches. On the basis of defining the concept of low-carbon economy, the institute constructed an indicator system consisting four clusters of indicators: low-carbon output, low-carbon consumption, low-carbon resources and low-carbon policies. Such indicator system system has been tested in several cases including the low-carbon roadmap development for Guangyuan City, Jilin City, Shenzhen City and Huangshi City. Some media reported this indicator system as“China's low-carbon city evaluation criteria”.

As an important component of the cooperation between China and Switzerland in the field of climate change, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in China launched the“China Low-carbon City Project”in 2010 and entrusted the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies in Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to learn from international experience and further develop“China Low-carbon City Evaluation Index/indicator System”in order to provide standards and guidance for China's low carbon city construction. After nearly three years of research, the institute developed low-carbon city evaluation framework with methodological support for China and its application guidance.

This index/indicator system is a tool developed with the funding of Sino-Swiss low-carbon city project with the target of guiding China's low-carbon city development. Such index/indicator system was developed through learning from the successful experience drawn in European Energy Award and Swiss Energy City Project with adjustments based on China's actualities. The indicator system has been tested in several cities, including Dezhou city in Shandong, Baoding in Hebei, Kunming in Yunnan, Meishan in Sichuan, Yinchuan in Ningxia, and Dongcheng District in Beijing.

“China Low-carbon City Evaluation Index/indicator System”consists of three integral and inter-connected parts-a list of indicators, low-carbon city assessment report and action plans for the case study cities. The core of this index/indicator system, the list of indicators, is further divided into two parts-major indicators and supporting indicators. Evaluation report is the result of application of the index/indicator system as well as a review and summary for the pilot cities' low-carbon city construction, while the action plans provide recommendation for future improvement.

The theoretical basis of methodologies for“China Low-carbon City Evaluation Index/indicator system”is the well-known“PDCA”in management science. Through the continuous“Plan-Do-Check-Action”cycle, experience could be summarized and lessons could be learned for future improvement. The most important feature of this indicator system is that it is not only able to evaluate the status of low-carbon urban development, but also to measure the efforts of the cities enables while taking into account their different geographical features and natural resource endowment. The indicator system could help cities to understand their current achievements, to identify their strengths and weaknesses, to learn from the successful experience of other cities, so that they could advance their low-carbon transition process in a more efficient way.

As this is an exploratory and cutting-edge research, throughout this project there had been several adjustments of research objectives. During the study, Mr. Walter Meyer, former Counsellor in Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation was extensively involved in the project and provided detailed technical guidance. Moreover, Dr. Wang Liyan, Mr. Liu Ke, Dr. Bai Chenxi, Miss Li Yang and Miss Bai Jie also gave great support for the project implementation. We would like to extend our special thanks to Mr. Philippe Zahner, the incumbent Counsellor, who always found constructive solutions whenever the project encountered difficulties and stalled. He played a critical role helping the project to finally succeed.

The support given by the project management office is highly appreciated. Mr. Zhang Rui Jie, director of PMO together with project managers Ms. Jin Qing, Ms. Weng Weili, Mr. Xie Hongxing and Mr. Wang Boyong are professionals with both expertise and enthusiasm for the research project. They coordinated and participated in all field trip studies of this project.

We also acknowledge the support provided by government officials in pilot cities, including those from Dezhou, Baoding, Kunming, Meishan, Yinchuan and Dongcheng District in Beijing. Under the coordination of PMO, the research team conducted several field trips in these pilot cities for interviews, indicator testing and data collection. Special thanks to Dezhou Energy Monitoring Commission, School of Economics and Management in North China Electric Power University, and the carbon indicator system research team in Kunming Low-carbon Development Research Center.

We owe the success also to Mr. Robert Harbaty, a Swiss expert who brought in advanced concepts and methodologies from Europe, and to Mr. Jiang Zhaoli, Division Chief in Department of Climate Change in National Development and Reform Commission, who provided both guidance and motivation for the project team.

Mr. Pan Jiahua, director-general of Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies in Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was the director of the research team. Mr. Zhuang Guiyang（Senior Research Fellow）was the acting team leader, and Mr. Zhu Shouxian（Associated Research Fellow）took responsibilities for overall coordination of the project. Ms. Zhang Ying（Associated Research Fellow）, Dr. Xiong Na, Dr. Cui Yuqing, Dr. Yuan Lu, Dr. Zhou Yamin, Mr. Li Qing（Senior Engineer）, Dr. Haoming，Prof. Liang Benfan participated in the research and made important contribution to the project.

Prof. Pan Jiahua, Prof. Zhuang Guiyang and Dr. Zhu Shouxian disseminated the research outputs in a variety of occasions including both domestic and international conferences. During United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban in December 2011, the project team presented the research output at China pavilion and the exhibition desk of Research Centre for Sustainable Development of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, attracting wide attention and interest among conference participants. We are pleased to see that the results of three years of hard work finally meet with readers, yet more importantly, we also hope to see more and more cities benefitting from application of such indicator system and guidelines in their low-carbon development. We are willing to provide further intellectual support for cities' low-carbon development efforts, as always.

Prof. Pan Jiahua

Director-general of

Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

May 30th,2013