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To achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals, many cities are building satellite cities to relieve the population and environment pressure of the central city. However, past experiences showed that long-term effects of such a solution were partially limited, due to limited attention on the effects of energy consumption and carbon emissions, depending on the dynamics of population and industrial development. This paper overcomes the previous limitations, applying a Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning model to the area of Xiong’an New District, an area extending from Hebei province (China) and nearby Beijing, is planned to support the development of Beijing. The proposed model was based on three different population migration, industrial and transposition scenarios to test their impacts on urban greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Results show that: (1) Increased population and building area will markedly increase GHG emissions from residential consumption in Hebei province, while slightly decrease GHG emissions in Beijing. (2) Green planning, including industrial structure changes, industrial transformation, will markedly decrease the GHG emissions in Hebei provinces and it can take down for the emissions increase due to the population migration. This paper proved the effectiveness of a multi-scalar, multi-dimensional, and multi-actor modeling approach for a satellite city and new town development planning, implying that a similar approach could be applied in planning and managing the development of future satellite cities.

There is a long and difficult way ahead of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement. Human society needs to move fast and far on the road. Sustainable development can hardly be achieved by ostensible “reforms” and “transitions”. The only possible way is to upgrade and transform the industrial civilization to ecological civilization, in which man and nature, and man and society are in harmony, in an all-round and in-depth way. To preserve nature and improve the eco-environment is in essence to protect and boost productivity. The value of nature and ecological assets must be reflected in the System of National Accounts in a scientific and objective way. The lifestyle in developed countries and production mode in the developing world must be transformed. So far a global agenda for sustainable development has been in position, and China has obtained remarkable achievements in the construction of ecological civilization and low-carbon transformation. To realize the targets set in the Paris Agreement, institutional innovation and international cooperation prove essential.