Emission reductions 'a pressure'
Source: Xinhua/Shanghai Daily |
November 12, 2011, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
CHINA faces great pressure in trying to meet its emission reduction target by 2015 as the country is still rapidly industrializing, a senior government official said yesterday.
The State Council, or China's Cabinet, on Wednesday approved a plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 17 percent per unit of China's gross domestic product until 2015.
The goal was proposed in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) approved by Chinese legislators in March, which also included a 16 percent cut in energy use per unit of GDP and a goal of lifting non-fossil-fuel energy usage to 11.4 percent of the country's total energy consumption from the current 8.6 percent.
"China is under great pressure to achieve these targets by 2015," Gao Shixian, assistant director-general of the energy research institute under the National Development and Reform Commission, said on the sidelines of an international investment promotion forum in Nanchang, capital city of east China's Jiangxi Province.
He said China will need to maintain relatively rapid economic growth in the next few years, which will require massive energy consumption.
"Maintaining rapid growth creates huge pressure for efforts to save energy and cut emissions," he said.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Environmental Protection announced yesterday that China plans to boost its environmental protection by investing more than 3 trillion yuan (US$470 billion) by 2015.
China's environmental protection industry is expected to see an annual growth rate of 15 to 20 percent in the next four years, with an annual average output value of 4.9 trillion yuan, said Wu Xiaoqing, vice environment minister, at the World Low Carbon and Eco-economy Conference and Technical Exposition in Nanchang.
Pollution concerns came under the microscope in comments by Vice Minister of Environmental Protection Zhang Lijun published yesterday in the People's Daily which said China's air pollution standards are too lax.
This was the highest level government comment following recent complaints that authorities are understating the extent of smog that often envelops Beijing.
The State Council, or China's Cabinet, on Wednesday approved a plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 17 percent per unit of China's gross domestic product until 2015.
The goal was proposed in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) approved by Chinese legislators in March, which also included a 16 percent cut in energy use per unit of GDP and a goal of lifting non-fossil-fuel energy usage to 11.4 percent of the country's total energy consumption from the current 8.6 percent.
"China is under great pressure to achieve these targets by 2015," Gao Shixian, assistant director-general of the energy research institute under the National Development and Reform Commission, said on the sidelines of an international investment promotion forum in Nanchang, capital city of east China's Jiangxi Province.
He said China will need to maintain relatively rapid economic growth in the next few years, which will require massive energy consumption.
"Maintaining rapid growth creates huge pressure for efforts to save energy and cut emissions," he said.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Environmental Protection announced yesterday that China plans to boost its environmental protection by investing more than 3 trillion yuan (US$470 billion) by 2015.
China's environmental protection industry is expected to see an annual growth rate of 15 to 20 percent in the next four years, with an annual average output value of 4.9 trillion yuan, said Wu Xiaoqing, vice environment minister, at the World Low Carbon and Eco-economy Conference and Technical Exposition in Nanchang.
Pollution concerns came under the microscope in comments by Vice Minister of Environmental Protection Zhang Lijun published yesterday in the People's Daily which said China's air pollution standards are too lax.
This was the highest level government comment following recent complaints that authorities are understating the extent of smog that often envelops Beijing.
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