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• Going Green with Tony Blair
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  Monday, Aug 24, 2009 6:58PM / Standard Entry / The One Foundation / Members only
  84 comments

  Firstly, thank you to all of you whom have supported the Morakot disaster in Taipei. Your love is felt all across the world.

  
  

  Yesterday, I visited Guiyang, China with Former Prime Minister Tony Blair to announce our "Thousand Villages Project" that focuses on changing the way electricity is consumed in China and the world by taking people off the electrical grid and switching them to solar power. In addition to using renewal power, switching lighting not only in the household but also in buildings and streetlamps to LED takes less power to use longer. That's like doing three simple things at once to make sure the next generation can see blue skies more often.
  
  Tony told me that in Britain, driving electrical cars and using renewal power has already become the norm. 

  
  Amazing.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Sharing a laugh with Tony.
  
  
  Over the past two years, each progressive step that the One Foundation has taken in helping with public welfare matters or charity related work often makes me very excited. I’m always touched when I see even more people join hand-in-hand with the One Foundation and launching a project together because of an idea, because they identify with us, and because they care about our society. This kind of feeling totally exceeds the satisfied feeling of that I get after completing a film.
  
  If you don’t take the small steps, how will you walk a thousand miles; the progress of public welfare and charity related work depends precisely on every little matter that might not be of any interest.
  
  Yesterday, the Climate Group and the One Foundation jointly launched the “Solar-powered LED Lighting the Thousand Villages Project”. This is the first collaborative project between the Climate Group and the One Foundation since signing a cooperative strategy memorandum agreement in March of this year.
  
  
  
  Walking instead of driving to the Conference Hall.
  
  
  

  Formalizing our "Thousand Villages Project" with the Climate Group.
  
  
  
  Presenting our Solar Powered/LED equipped model village in Guiyang.
  
  
  
  See the blue sky behind us? A rare sight to behold in China, but one that can be an everyday reality if we all do our part.
  
  
  
  
  
  I’d like to ask everyone a very simple question – have you ever experienced a power-cut before? Or maybe try to imagine, what would you do if you had no power at night? How much would it affect your lifestyle and the way you live? What I want to say is, there are a lot of people living right next to us – in rural villages throughout China, in India, in Africa – they live in an environment with no electricity or power sources.
  
  Luckily, this kind of phenomenon is in the process of changing. Yesterday, I represented the One Foundation and together with one of the co-founders of the Climate Group, former British Prime Minister Mr. Tony Blair, we jointly launched the “Solar-powered LED Lighting the Thousand Villages Project”. We also visited Baigong Village in Dang Wuxiang of Huaxi district, Guaiyang. This village is also our first illustrative example for the Thousand Village Project. The time frame set for the Solar-powered LED Lighting the Thousand Villages Project is five years. The project will involve 400 villages around China in the first two years. In the next three years to follow, the project will expand to over 600 villages within countries including China, India and Africa.
  
  
  
  
  
  Amy Zhou (our One Foundation Executive Chairman), Tony Blair, and Me.
  
  
  
  My good friend Khalik Malid from the United Nations Development Program. He's the UN Resident Coordinator in China.
  
  
  
  Presenting Tony with a handkerchief as a gift from our Qiang Embroidery social entrepreneurship project in Sichuan.
  
  
  
  
  Because the power supply of some remote villages still isn’t connected to the Country’s electricity network, using this kind of solar-powered LED light technology has become a very good idea as a substitute. Not only will this kind of technology solve lighting problems in some areas around China, it will also reduce the amount of greenhouse emissions in village areas because solar-powered LED lights is powered by the sun, a clean and unlimited source of energy.
  
  I’ve frequently participated in various types of international economic forums and cultural exchanges over the past few years and I can honestly feel that the global economy is becoming more aware of environmental protection and is developing a tendency towards lower carbon emissions. I am very pleased to collaborate with the Climate Group in this project. I’m first going to conduct some demonstrations in rural villages around China, and while solving the problem and constructing roadside lighting for villages in China, I’ll also be able to promote the idea of a new form of environmental protection that can be universalized and developed in China. This is definitely something beneficial. Climate change is not just an environmental issue; it’s also an economic and development issue. In the proposal document, “The Road to Lower Carbon Emissions, Cities Work Together”, we invited many cities within China to participate in this project and help reduce greenhouse emissions, optimize energy resources, and to promote cleaner greener technological innovations.
  
  I personally agree very much with a saying that Mr. Blair said at this event: “We can encourage the world to choose a future with lower carbon emissions. But what we need now is to take action.” I’d also like to take this opportunity to make an appeal to everyone – take action immediately, support environmental protection. Start from doing little things every day such as saving electricity usage.
  
  Let’s take action together! I hope that everyone in our One Foundation family will be proud of the One Foundation for taking another progressive step!
  
  

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