Yang Fujia, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the vice president of the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) and the first Chinese president of University of Nottingham in Britain, has called on all universities and colleges throughout China to take the initiative constructing energy-efficient buildings.

He expressed his views in a special report presented at the Annual Conference of China Association for Science and Technology.

He's very dissatisfied with Chinese academic buildings that feature glass curtain walls. He said that the heating energy requirement for Chinese architecture is approximately two or three times more than that of advanced countries that have similar climate conditions as China. 

Moreover, glass curtain walls are not popular in foreign countries because they allow light pollution to enter the building. They're also fragile, generating another hidden danger to cities.

Yang said that he had visited many universities and colleges in China. Unfortunately he found few universities or colleges that took note of potential environment problems when building their campus.

Chinese universities and colleges have the world's biggest gates, the highest architecture and the largest libraries but few consider energy efficiency. Princeton University was constructed in 1720 and the Harvard University gate is very small, yet they're the best two universities in America, said Yang. 

"Universities and colleges should take the leading role regarding energy-saving and environment-friendly issues. I feel gratified that Tsinghua University has noticed this problem. In 2005 they started constructing a demonstration building with ultra-low energy consumption," he added.

"In western countries, even five-year-old children are tuned into environment protection, but we are still trying to teach college students how to behave environmentally -- that is a big difference," he added.

(China.org.cn by Chen Lin, September 13, 2007)