Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, said in a recent interview that "China has done a tremendous job of having rapid development."

Asked whether he thinks that China can maintain a healthy growth rate in the wake of the global financial crisis, Sachs said, "I do because I think in the last decade, China has been using its savings to invest in the US, but China has a lot of good use for its savings in China to deal with the infrastructures of China's cities, to clean the water supply, to develop an efficient, sustainable energy system."

On China's strategy for sustainable development, he said, "I think there are clearly some areas of success for China, like a developing solar industry but in fact, China remains a coal-based economy and that's a big problem for China, for its air pollution and for the carbon emissions."

Sachs is helping the Chinese government in hammering out the strategy for the mid-term sustainable development in China, known as China 2049 Program, named after the 100th anniversary of the People's Republic of China.

What US has to offer

"We asked the question to many Chinese policy makers and leaders: What should China aim for in the 100th anniversary of the People's Republic in the year 2049? Where will the cities of China be with another 400 or 500 million people coming into the cities? How will the air remain clean? How will there be enough water?" he said.

"The US has not done a good job in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions so you can't learn very much from the US in this but in certain areas, in water pollution and in air pollution, the US has definitely some good examples," he said. "In terms of urbanization, the US has some good examples but I also think it has some bad examples."

"New York City is a very good example," he said. "It's a very densely populated city. It has public transport that is quite good. Its emissions of greenhouse gases are about one-third of the US average so that's a big plus, or maybe even one-fourth in some ways."

"Los Angeles, on the other hand, I think is not a good example for China because Los Angeles is a big, sprawling city," he said.

"Whenever you want to go somewhere in Los Angeles, you have to get in a car and you drive and you drive and it's tremendously energy using, it emits a lot of greenhouse gases, it's vulnerable to environmental change."

(Shanghai Daily June 8, 2009)