The coastal city of Yantai in East China's Shandong province is encouraging low-carbon transition by emphasizing green development in its socioeconomic advancement.

In 2016, the National Energy Conservation Center named Yantai a demonstration city for the promotion of green development, the first of its kind in the country. Since then, the city has made consistent efforts to promote the transition toward green and low-carbon production methods and lifestyles, accelerate modernization and build a beautiful city.

According to official data, the city's air quality in 2022 attained the national second-class standard for the fifth consecutive year, and the proportion of State-controlled water sections with good-quality surface water increased to 90.9 percent.

Yantai released a three-year action plan (2023-25) in late 2022 which spelled out key tasks regarding the replacement of old growth drivers with new ones. The city have drawn a new blueprint for Yantai to promote green, low-carbon and high-quality development.

According to the development plan, Yantai will beef up efforts to promote green building, and more than 8 million square meters of green buildings will be built this year.

Since the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period, more than 34 million-sq-m green buildings have been built in the city, and Yantai was also awarded the national honor for green development. Currently, the city’s forest coverage rate stands at 36.28 percent, the highest in the province. Yantai was also awarded the title of National Forest City.

To achieve its peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality goals, Yantai has set up a batch of demonstration application scenarios such as comprehensive utilization of nuclear energy and low-carbon clean heating, such as the nuclear heating projects in Haiyang, a county-level city in Yantai.

The Haiyang nuclear power plant has a heating system connected to two traditional nuclear units, making it the first commercial attempt in China to supply heat from traditional nuclear power.

According to official data, as of June this year, the two units of the first phase of the Haiyang nuclear power plant have generated more than 93 billion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity, equivalent to a 40-million-metric-ton reduction in raw coal consumption.

The coastal city of Yantai in East China's Shandong province is encouraging low-carbon transition by emphasizing green development in its socioeconomic advancement. [Photo/yantai.gov.cn]