The moment UK citizens were given visa free travel into China, I knew my year abroad in Hong Kong wouldn’t be complete without having spent some time exploring and traveling around the mainland. And the only way to do that in style, speed, and sustainability is by bullet train.
Like a spiderweb, China’s fully electric high speed rail network reaches out across the whole of the nation, from southern bustling port megacities, to remote northern Provences. As you zip through the country at a cool 350km per hour, it’s impossible to take in everything that lies in the endless expanses of Chinese countryside that exists like a limbo between metropolises.
When planning my long awaited trip through the mainland, and being resilient to flying, having flown to Hong Kong in the first place, I would have been sorry not to make the most of these low-carbon producing masterpieces. Departing from Zhanggaigei station, headed for Chong Ching Dong station, the train largest station in the world, this 600km journey flashed by in just short of 2 hours, and producing only 5-20kg of CO2 per passenger, compared to the 125kg of CO2 per passenger from an equivalent distance flight (Strauss, J. et al 2021). Not only that, but you also didn’t have any of the airport stress, with the option to turn up only 20 minutes before departing. There’s also no need to pack a lunch, as for longer journeys you can have food delivered to your seat by ordering food from restaurants in the city at the next stop.
beyond the train journey itself, I made a conscious decision to keep this sustainable mindset going once I arrived in each destination. rather than relying on taxies to get around cities like chongching and Shanghai, I used the local metro system with the aim of cutting out short haul emissions where possible for as much of my trip as I could. this choice to prioritise public transport speaks directly to the UN Sustainability Goal (SDG) 9, which champions low emission infrastructure like that found across china, as well as SDG 11 on sustainable cities, and SDG 13 on climate action, given the significant reduction in my carbon footprint compared to equivalent flights and taxies. For me, sustainable travel isn’t just about a single grand gesture, but about the accumulation of many small, consistent decisions that together genuinely make an international placement have a lower environmental impact.
References:
Jack Strauss, Hongchang Li, Jinli Cui (2021) High-speed Rail’s impact on airline demand and air carbon emissions in China, Transport Policy, Volume 109, 2021, Pages 85-97, ISSN 0967-070X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2021.05.019
