ISC believes that the U.S and China, the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gasses, can work together to lead the world in addressing climate disruption. Taking advantage of the best Chinese and U.S. expertise, ISC’s work is bringing cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable environmental programs and practices to two of China’s most industrial provinces, Guangdong and Jiangsu.
Our Guangdong Environmental Partnership program, launched in 2007, aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve public health, and increase environmental accountability in Guangdong province, which has been called the “factory to the world.” Our program works at three levels to spark a wave of change in environmental and energy-efficiency practices in communities across the province:
In order to boost environmental and safety standards in the many factories in Guangdong, ISC’s Environment, Health and Safety Academy provides affordable,
state-of-the-art training to 1,800 factory managers per year to help them implement measures that save energy, reduce harmful emissions, and improve worker health and safety conditions.
We are strengthening the environmental enforcement tools of government by sharing international best practices to bolster information disclosure, citizen monitoring, risk communication, and resource efficiency.
To generate public commitment to using resources wisely, ISC is working with three communities and schools in Guangdong to implement energy efficiency projects in factories, schools, hospitals, and residences. At the same time, we are developing courses on resource efficiency and environmental health for children ages 9-13 and involving the public, business and community leaders, and education administrators in their hands-on learning.
In the fall of 2009, we launched the U.S.-China Partnership for Climate Action with our partner, the World Resources Institute. This program will leverage resources and best practices from both countries to achieve significant and lasting greenhouse gas reductions in Jiangsu and Guangdong.
Building on our existing work in Guangdong, our program targets the largest current source of emissions in China—the industrial and power sectors—and the fastest growing source of new emissions—urban cities.
To improve the capacity of energy-intensive industries to reduce their energy and carbon footprints, the program is creating new greenhouse gas accounting tools to standardize measurement. Through our existing Environment, Health and Safety Academy in Guangdong and the launch of a second Academy in Jiangsu, we will help factories implement these new tools.
In 2008, half the increase in annual CO2 emissions worldwide was attributed to the Chinese electric utility sector. With this in mind, the program works to remove key barriers to and build incentives for increased energy efficiency and renewable energy use in the power sector and among end users.
We are working with Chinese cities to deepen and scale up successful clean energy models, including peer-to-peer networking with U.S. counterparts, through our Climate Leadership Academies, the first of which focused on low-carbon city planning and development.
China's Guangdong province helped spur the nation's economic miracle and remains a powerful engine of growth, generating 11 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. With our partner, Lingnan (University) College, ISC has launched a new Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) Academy to expand the pool of qualified EHS managers serving factories in Guangdong Province.
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ISC is partnering with the Chinese nonprofit, the Institute for Civil Society, to help Sichuan communities plan for the long-term and address issues laid bare by the earthquake—even as they tackle the immediate job of reconstruction.
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Our locally based approach to energy efficiency in Russia yeilded dramatic drops in CO2 and saved millions of rubles—proving that what is good for the climate is good for the community.
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