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China's choking transport
Page 50
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THE IRONY OF hosting a gathering like this in the heartland of one of the world's biggest polluters is not lost on CM(or indeed many of the participants). You only get a real perspective of just how far Western Europe has come when you visit somewhere like
Shanghai. Taxi rides with the windows down are not for the faint-hearted.
During the hour-long shuttle bus trip from the airport to the hotel, one of the newspaper motoring correspondents who made up our party said of the UK's recycling policy: "Compacting that small piece of cereal box for the paper bank seems like a futile exercise when you're engulfed in a city like this.'
But the organiser's choice of location was not completely off the deep end. Shanghai is a city of mammoth proportions and home to more than 16 million inhabitants. It is predicted that by 2030 60% of the world's ballooning population will live in cities. They will demand an ever-increasing flow of goods, creating a mind-boggling strain an the already disordered transportation system.
The test for policy and decision makers centres on a clean and sustainable way of delivering goods, collecting waste and generally making sure the infrastructure doesn't choke on its own 002 vomit.
The business of moving people around Shanghai is surprisingly efficient. Buses and trains are well organised, clean and safe. It's a shame the same couldn't be said for the rickety road transport vehicles. The technology here is dated, Western trucks are few and far between, and then there are the smoke-belching factories they collect from: for your average tree-hugger, it's the stuff of nightmares.