Ex-UK PM Tony Blair visits Expo

Former British prime minister Tony Blair (second left) and movie star Li Bingbing (center) attend the launch ceremony of the CoolDriver project in Shanghai on Tuesday. Yong Kai / China Daily

Shanghai - Former British prime minister and one of the initiators of the Climate Group, Tony Blair, is in Shanghai to promote the Million Forest campaign, an environmental-protection project in Gansu province.

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Blair, together with Wu Changhua, the China president of the Climate Group, and the Million Forest Asian promotion ambassador, movie star Li Bingbing, announced the official launch of the new CoolDriver project.

The project is aimed at encouraging Chinese car owners to decrease carbon emission by donating to green campaigns, car pooling and using public transportation, among other measures.

Blair said he was glad to see the project reach its goal of planting a million sea-buckthorn trees in Gansu within only one of the planned two years.

Blair said he was concerned about climate change because the environment is something that "we pass on to the next generation, and either we take action now or future generations will pay the price."