The first carbon emission monitoring tower in downtown Beijing is being built in a greenbelt square south of Chang'an Avenue in Chongwen District, as part of a program to reduce the city's greenhouse gas emissions, a city official said Tuesday.

The 50-meter-tall tower, scheduled for completion in August, will help Beijing citizens know the area's real-time amount of carbon dioxide emissions through a screen on the tower, said Wang Xiaoping, director of the Beijing Forestry Carbon Administration (BFCA).

Four carbon emission monitoring towers are planned for Beijing, Wang said.

One in Beijing's Daxing District has been completed and two others, in Badaling and Tongzhou, are under construction.

(Xinhua News Agency April 14, 2010)