China's energy consumption per unit gross domestic product (GDP) has dropped more than 13 per cent since the beginning of the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" (2006-10), disclosed Xie Zhenhua, vice director of the National Development and Reform Commission, in a news conference of the Third Ministerial Conference of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which was held in Shanghai on October 27, 2009.
"Through our continuous efforts, the objective of reducing the energy consumption per unit GDP by 20 per cent proposed in the 'Eleventh Five-Year Plan' would be achieved at the end of next year," said Xie at the conference.
There are difficulties in achieving the binding indicator in energy conservation and emission reduction, especially in the current financial crisis, as China is in the process of industrialisation and urbanisation.
However, China has made energy conservation and emission reduction top priorities, and deems them critical issues in economic structural adjustment, as well as in shifting the manner in development.
In 2006, the energy consumption per unit GDP in China dropped 1.79 per cent; and the magnitude of drop was further extended to 4.04 per cent and 4.59 per cent in 2007 and 2008, respectively. In the first half of 2009, the value dropped 3.35 per cent. So far, the energy consumption per unit GDP in China has dropped more than 13 per cent accumulatively since 2006.
"It's expected that the energy consumption per unit GDP in China will drop about 5 per cent in 2009, and similar margin can be achieved next year. Therefore, it's possible to achieve the overall objective of 20 per cent by 2010," said Xie. This means that China will achieve its objective of saving 620 million metric tons of standard coal and reduce the emission of carbon dioxide by 1.5 billion tons annually by the end of 2010.
To achieve this objective on energy conservation and emission reduction, the Chinese government has eliminated a large quantity of inefficient production capacity in iron and steel, cement, coke and other industries, including the shutdown of a batch of inefficient small coal-fired units.
In addition, non-fossil energy is also developing swiftly in China, especially in the renewable energy sector. China has ranked at the top of the world both in the installed capacity of hydropower and the utilisation area of solar energy. China recently has proposed to improve the proportion of non-fossil energy in total primary energy consumption to about 15 per cent by 2020.
