In September, 2011, as a visitor from China, I took part in ICMA Climate Change Program here in America. I visited Annapolis, metropolis of Maryland State, Alexandria, an old city in Virginia, Chesapeake Bay, a firth on east coast of America and so on. After auditing the conference of MWCOG about solar energy and CHP, I met many people from ICMA, DDOE and EPA. They are warm-hearted and kind to us, and I’m really impressed by their serious attitude and abundant working experience. I feel so deeply in my heart. Following, I will do some comparison between China and America on the environmental protection activities.

Talking about America, first of all, I have to say that it has done a good job on publicity. No matter where you go, you could always see the advertisement, on the street, on the cars, on the subways and so on. And as a result, citizens have abundant knowledge and strong will on environmental protection. People are all self-conscious to contribute to environment, for example, separate collection. In addition, America has a long history practicing certain steps for environmental problems and a complete and healthy law system. Different levels of government have their own measures and they all work well with non-government organizations. Furthermore, America has advanced knowledge, including usage of solar energy and heat and power cogenerating systems and it has a lot of money investing on that to ensure the implement of the practices. Thus, in conclusion, things work well in America and people all could take their responsibilities to improve the environmental situation.

Here comes China, my homeland. Looking at what we have done on environmental protection, let’s take Xi’an as an example. Until now, we still focus more on dealing with industrial pollution, vehicle exhaust emission and noise control. We still have problem solving the problem on the basic level of environmental protection and the work on climate change and greenhouse gas emission is just at introductory step. People pervasively are lack of knowledge and don’t care more about climate change. Therefore, you can see that things are so much different in China.

The huge gap between these two countries is because of the difference between the national situations, society development level and population. Although America has so many advanced steps, not all of them are fit for China. But in the area of spreading environmental protection knowledge, pervading the recognition of climate change and some advanced pollution dispersal technologies, China should certainly use them as sources of reference and improve its environmental career.