One of my China Dialogue colleagues in Beijing recently bought a Philips energy-saving light bulb to replace a standard one.He was happy with his choice.It may have cost 30 yuan (just under US$4.50) - ten times the price of a filament   bulb - but he wanted to save energy as part of his low-carbon lifestyle.And according to the shopkeeper, he would save, in the long run, much more than the 30 yuan he was spending. Yet only one month later, his expensive light bulb blew up, before he had saved even a small part of the purchase price.Will he stick to his high-cost, low-carbon lifestyle? China's environmental organizations have started to advocate low-carbon lifestyles and the decrease of carbon footprints to help fight against climate change.But they have overlooked one fact: in China, low-carbon living comes at a high cost.It means buying energy-saving bulbs and appliances, and environmentally friendly building materials and daily goods.Cost can no longer be the only standard for purchases.An energy-saving and environmentally friendly product is more expensive than a standard alternative - whether it's a simple light bulb or the house it shines.For average consumers, even buying an ordinary bulb is a huge burden.How can we persuade ordinary people to choose an energy-saving residence? This is not a trend they can afford to follow; perhaps this fashion is only for the rich. Most consumers today do not cause huge carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.Their responsibility lies not in choosing a low-carbon lifestyle today, but in avoiding a high-carbon life in the future.The principle of "common but differentiated responsibility" - a basis of sustainable development - can be applied here as well. In China, low-carbon living still is resisted by a lack of social infrastructure . Even if your salary allows you to make that choice, nobody is there to help you accomplish it. Consider energy-saving homes. You need to find out whether or not the developer has used natural materials wherever possible; how effective the insulation(, ) is; and what the green credentials of installed equipment are.You can read up a little, but you'll still be lucky to avoid being puzzled by the developers' marketing.Many so-called energy-saving buildings are nothing of the sort, and some are even more energy-hungry than the average home - as Li Taige warned in his article "Energy-efficient buildings? Not always", on China Dialogue last August. What does the writer think of energy-saving homes?
Most of them are environmentally friendly. They are musts of low-carbon lifestyle of Chinese. They are huge burdens for Chinese people. Many of them are more in name than in reality.