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March for green goals

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-16 07:38

The new list ranking China's provinces according to their progress in energy conservation in 2007 will give policymakers a needed shot in the arm.

Though the country still failed to meet its annual target of reducing energy intensity by 4 percent, an upward revision of the country's GDP has made the country's economic growth last year a little bit greener than originally thought.

Premier Wen Jiabao told the National People's Congress in March that China saw a 3.27 percent year-on-year drop in energy consumption for each unit of GDP in 2007. But the latest official figures show that the country's energy consumption for every 10,000 yuan ($1,429) of GDP stood at 1.16 tons of coal equivalent last year, down 3.66 percent from 2006.

Small as it may look, the difference in the drop of China's energy intensity can mean tens of millions of tons of coal has been saved through energy conservation.

For policymakers who are fighting an uphill war to meet the country's goal of cutting energy intensity by 20 percent between 2006 and 2010, such a better-than-expected progress will surely boost their confidence in and commitment to pursuing greener growth.

The energy intensity list also shows that more than two-thirds of the provinces have met the annual goal of a 4-percent cut in energy intensity last year. That makes a sharp contrast to the previous year when only Beijing had managed to do so.

It is obvious that most local governments have considerably stepped up their efforts to make energy use more efficient and cut pollution in the past year.

Powered by its ambition to deliver a "Green Olympics", Beijing continued to take the lead in raising energy efficiency. It burned the least amount of coal equivalent, 0.714 tons for 10,000 yuan of GDP last year, a 6.04 percent year-on-year reduction.

Yet, more important, the new list confirmed again the vital interrelation between energy efficiency and economic development.

A closer look at the new list reveals that while most of well-off provinces in coastal areas enjoy the highest energy efficiency in the country, the less-developed provinces in western areas usually stay at the other end of the spectrum of energy intensity.

If western areas want to catch up with their eastern cousins, they have no choice but to raise their energy efficiency more aggressively.

(China Daily 07/16/2008 page8)