Guangzhou’s bus system wins UN award
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E-mail China Daily, December 7, 2012
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said the Momentum for Change awards take people out of negotiations and into the reality.
"Forget this conference, forget the texts. These projects take us out there to communities and to people who are exactly experiencing climate change and are actually innovative enough to come up with solutions to help reduce greenhouse gases,” Figueres said in her awards speech.
The Momentum for Change awards began at the Durban, South Africa, conference last year.
Jon Bickel, representative of the Peru branch of Swisscontact — the Swiss foundation that funded the projects of energy-efficient brick kilns in Peru and another eight countries in Latin America, including Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador and Columbia — warns that developing countries will face more serious problems caused by climate change than developed countries do if they don’t act in time now.
"Countries such as China, India and Brazil are growing very fast, which means they demand a lot of resources and energy. Now it’s developed countries who produce the largest amount of greenhouse gases, but in the future, it will be developing countries,” Bickel told China Daily at the rehearsal for the ceremony.
He has special concerns about the big populations in many developing countries. “For example, every two people in Europe have a car. If it’s the same situation in China, there will be too many cars producing too many greenhouse gases,” Bickel said.
Bickel said the bus rapid transit system in Guangzhou offers big cities in the country the most suitable solution, which is mass public transportation.
Rigg said the Guangzhou system impressed the advisory panel of the Momentum for Change awards with its scale.
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