By 2010, simply by turning a dial, the majority of people in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, will be able to adjust the indoor temperature of their own homes. This will modernize the current system of constant central heating.

Outlining the advantages, Parat Abdukadir, deputy director general of the economic and trade commission of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, said: "In this way, people can control the amount of energy, water and natural gas they use. This should save more than a quarter of the energy taken by the central heating system."

This is just one among a number of measures that the local government has taken in recent years to promote energy conservation and emission reduction. The result of these steps is that Xinjiang achieved its environmental protection target for the first time last year, in accordance with targets laid down as part of the Eleventh Five-year Plan (2006-10).