2 Chinese cities awarded in Paris for efforts to tackle climate change

Two Chinese cities on Thursday received this year's C40 Cities Awards, which celebrate a wide range of innovative climate-related projects that have proven successful in large cities around the world.

An awards ceremony was held Thursday evening here, where intense climate talks among over 150 countries are taking place, with the participation of municipal officials, entrepreneurs, scholars and media representatives.

Wuhan, the capital of central China's Hubei province, was awarded in the category of solid waste, for the ecological restoration project of Jinkou landfill, which successfully transformed the city's largest landfill site into an ecological park.

Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu province, was voted winner in the category of transportation, for the city's new energy vehicle promotion efforts. As of now, 4,332 new energy vehicles have been deployed in the city, including transit buses, taxis and private cars.

In total, 10 cities were awarded in 10 different categories such as smart cities engagement, adaptation implementation, building energy efficiency and green energy. Other winning cities included New York, Cape Town, Rotterdam, Vancouver and Stockholm.

The annual awards were established in 2013 by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a non-profit organization connecting large cities with each other so as to share good practices on tackling climate change.

"The C40 Cities Awards recognizes mayors who are doing the hard work of taking action on climate change and delivering results," said C40 president and United Nations Secretary-General Special Envoy for Climate Change Michael Bloomberg, who announced and presented the awards at the ceremony. "The solutions highlighted through the awards offer models for other cities to follow."

"The award is a great encouragement to Nanjing," said Deputy Mayor Huang Lan who accepted the award on behalf of Nanjing, noting that the use of new energy vehicles have helped the city reduce over 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Sources: XINHUA