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Hefei included this new jurisdiction and its population, a review was con-
ducted of a range of Hefei emissions and energy consumption statistics, all of
which showed a distinct boost from 2010 to 2011 roughly commensurate with
the incorporation of a new jurisdiction of over 2 million people.
Second, Fig. 16.3 shows that only Hefei’s industrial electricity use
decreased in the post-2010 period among the other central capital cities, and
Fig. 16.4 shows that Hefei’s industrial raw coal consumption increased in 2011
with its incorporation of Chaohu, and despite a brief drop in 2012, its in-
dustrial coal use only increased thereafter. Fig. 16.5 shows that Hefei’s 2011
industrial SO 2 emissions increased from the previous year as expected, but the
city managed to maintain a decreasing and then a constant emission level in
the years following. Hefei’s post-2010 improvements in industrial energy ef-
ficiency and SO 2 emissions are surprisingly high considering the challenges
posed by the sudden expanded jurisdiction and population, but the same
cannot be said for industrial raw coal consumption, suggesting that depen-
dence on coal as an energy source in production processes remained constant.
As the next section explains, the improvements made are explicable by
stringent policy efforts undertaken by the Hefei government during this time
period.

Hefei’s Green Transition

Hefei’s leaders oversaw a substantial period of environmental protection
regulatory and capacity improvements during the 11th Five Year Plan period
(2006e10), which, although they did not intend this, prepared the city for a
2011 State Council decision that would make the city responsible for over 2
million new residentsdand the pollution that came with it. Helping inland
China catch up economically with the wealthy coast became a state priority in
the early 2000s, beginning with the Western Development Plan, and later the
Central Rising Strategy announced in 2004, which sought to redistribute
coastal wealth to the central region (Ang, 2017; Lai, 2007). Anhui shares the
largest border with Jiangsu, one of the wealthiest coastal provinces in China,
and Hefei was presumably deeply involved in these efforts to catch up
economically with the coast. In 2005 the Hefei government was trying to lure
in as many businesses as possible, having been ranked among the top 50 cities
nationwide for investment (KPMG, 2008), following a “growth at any cost”
model typical of growth machine politics, and following the coastal devel-
opment model of previous decades (Ang, 2017). The Hefei municipal gov-
ernment’s development model changed during the 11th Five Year Plan period,
beginning in 2006. In that year, construction began for Hefei’s “Binhu new
district” and became a focal point for the city’s Eco-City efforts, and its
environmental innovations, including green building projects. This project
subsequently won national recognition as an Ecological Demonstration Zone
(Xia et al., 2010).