Starting June 5th, the world’s first “green travel” low-carbon transport cards have begun being issued to the public in Shanghai. A batch of 20,000 low carbon transport cards were previously issued to enterprises, and sold out within a month. However, this June is the first time that the environmentally friendly transport cards are available to the general public.

The “green travel” transport cards cost 40 RMB. For each card sold, 20 RMB will go towards supporting a carbon reduction project in China, with each card contributing to one ton of carbon dioxide reduction. The funds raised by the cards will be used to support a number of projects such as planting trees. According to Zhang Jianyu, one of the people in charge of the “green travel” transport card project, card-holders will be able to use the number printed on the card to check online exactly where, and on what, the carbon-reduction function of their card is being used. By entering the card number, people can also find out information of the plan’s progress, execution and the different types of projects etc. However, the official website (http://www.cleanair.net.cn/) is in Chinese only.

However, no matter whether Chinese or foreign, carbon reduction is something that we must all contribute to, regardless of nationality, and if you can manage to get you’re your hands on one of these cards, then you’re already off to a good start. Although the focus of this year’s Expo is on environmentally sustainable solutions for cities, the entire event itself is expected to produce 9 million tones of carbon emissions. Statistics show that at present the largest source of carbon dioxide produced by the Shanghai Expo comes from transport – accounting towards 80% of total carbon dioxide emitted. To illustrate this, one domestic tourist taking a train to Shanghai and visiting the Expo for one week, produces about 0.6 tons of carbon on average. Moreover, a tourist coming to the Shanghai Expo from New York for one week produces five tons of carbon on average. Multiply that by the 70 million tourists expected to visit, and the figures become quite clear.

There are four channels for obtaining the cards and customers who order the tickets now will receive them by the end of June. The cards are available at the following venues/businesses: “We are the World” Pavilion in the Expo, Home Inn hotels around the city (如家快捷酒店), Shanghai Dazhong Transport Group (www.dz-card.com) and Yihaodian.com.

Source: Sina.com.cn

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