Focus on Arts and Ecology

 The big environmental stories in the Chinese media this week (20-26 November)

A few provinces might fail to meet their 2016-2020 energy intensity target, just when China’s new carbon neutrality pledge requires even more ambitious targets, a Chinese media report revealed this week.

China Energy News reports that more than 10 provinces, including Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and Shaanxi, will have difficulty meeting key energy targets assigned to them under the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-2020) – including for lessening energy intensity (consumption per unit of GDP) and total energy consumption. 

Reducing energy intensity has been central to China’s climate agenda and its efforts to decouple economic growth from carbon emissions. The central government has been setting binding targets to lower energy intensity since the 12th FYP period (2011-2015), when it mandated a 16% reduction from 2010 levels. In the 13th FYP, a further reduction of 15% was required. The total consumption cap is non-binding but is used to monitor energy development trends. Both national level targets were broken down and allocated to more than 30 provinces.

The investigation by China Energy News shows that, as a whole, China is on track to meet its 15% energy-intensity reduction target by the end of this year. However, that success is regionally unbalanced. Some provinces will overachieve, while others are struggling to keep energy consumption under control. Inner Mongolia, for example, is seeing a 10.56% increase in energy intensity. As such, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) summoned Inner Mongolia’s leaders for a meeting. Shaanxi province’s energy officials also admitted to the newspaper that the province’s energy intensity would rise.

The provincial leaders explained to China Energy News that during the 13th FYP period, their provinces had built many high-energy projects. On the other hand, newer, cleaner industries had not grown fast enough. They also maintained that many of the energy-heavy projects were for the energy security of the whole country, and advocated for more lenient intensity targets in consideration of their special role as energy producers. For instance, a Ningxia official wondered openly if key energy projects put in his province by national planners should be accounted for separately, rather than eating into the province’s precious energy budget.

While some national level policymakers are sympathetic to such calls, others are more blunt. “The whole point of setting a binding energy intensity target is to put pressure on provinces to reform their energy structure,” said one anonymous central government official to China Energy News. “You can’t loosen the target just because some provinces have difficulty meeting it.” Du Xiangwan, a member of China’s Academy of Engineering, told the newspaper that energy intensity is the primary indicator of the quality of a country’s energy system. “China’s energy intensity is still 1.5 times the global average. It is simply unsustainable,” he said.

Read China Dialogue’s earlier report on China’s efforts to improve industrial energy efficiency.

(Sources: China Dialogue)