Photo: Energy-safe-Cities

East Asian cities eye a new 100 percent renewable energy goal

29 October 2014

by Richard Forster

ICLEI, the global network for sustainable local governments, together with the Wuppertal Institute, has launched the first stage of an ambitious new programme to help cities in East Asia become 100 percent renewable energy-based by 2030.

Called Energy-safe Cities – East Asia, it envisions cities from China, the two Koreas, Japan, Mongolia and eastern Russia being powered by not only renewable energy but also safe energy.

Konrad Otto-Zimmermann, Founding Director of ICLEI’s East Asia Secretariat and Chairman, ICLEI Urban Agendas
Konrad Otto-Zimmermann, Founding Director of ICLEI’s East Asia Secretariat and Chairman, ICLEI Urban Agendas

“The Fukushima disaster has once more illustrated that we cannot justify the extraordinary, long-term risks of nuclear energy by the need of a single generation to have seemingly cheap energy,” Konrad Otto-Zimmermann, Founding Director of ICLEI’s East Asia Secretariat and Chairman, ICLEI Urban Agendas, told Cities Today. “A city which is one hundred percent supplied from renewable energy sources in a resilient way deserves the label ‘energy-safe’.”

Launched during an Energy-safe Cities symposium in Beijing, China, vice mayors and technical department heads participated from Baoding, Yixing, and Zhenjiang from China; Kyoto, Tokyo, and Yokohama from Japan; Mongolia’s capital city Ulaanbaatar; and Cheongju, Inje, Jeonju, and Samcheok from South Korea.

The symposium is the first step of the programme to explore the pathway leading up to 2017 when specific action plans will be announced to achieve the 100 percent renewable energy goal.

Organisers cite the examples set forth by other cities like Sydney, Copenhagen, Reykjavik, Freiburg and Malmö that have shown already that there are a wide range of technologies, policy strategies, as well as financial and social tools that are being effectively applied toward the goal of low-risk, resilient, and 100 percent renewable energy-based cities.

“We must fully exploit what today’s technologies are offering and envisage radical solutions,” added Otto-Zimmermann. “These will make cities more resilient, energy supplies more sustainable, and the economy greener.”

The symposium was co-hosted by Green Technology Center–Korea and endorsed by international renewable and sustainable energy associations. The second stage of the programme will now begin spanning eight to 12 months, where local scenario workshops will be held in cities that commit to undertake Goal 2030 for 100 percent renewable and energy-safe cities.

  • Reuters Automotive
https://cities-today.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Dawn-crop.png

Technology inclusion goes beyond internet access in LA

  • Reuters Automotive