Isra-Mart srl:China confirms green growth five-year plan

www.isra-mart.com

Isra-Mart srl news:

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has said China will have to shift its measure of economic success away from GDP-focused criteria towards a broader set of sustainability metrics if the country is to meet new goals designed to save energy and reduce reliance on fossil fuels and included in its latest five-year plan.

The National People's Congress this weekend voted through the 12th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, which promised to set China on a more sustainable and low-carbon development path.

The plan will be officially published in the coming days and will feature an energy-specific plan – one of 17 individual strategies spun-off from the five-year plan – that is scheduled to be finalised by the end of the month.

It will incorporate the environmental targets set out in the five-year plan; namely to increase the proportion of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to 11.4 per cent, while reducing energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 16 per cent and 17 per cent respectively by the end of 2015.

Improving the energy efficiency of coal-fired power plants, shifting towards cleaner gas plants, and increasing investment in high-speed rail and alternative fuel vehicles are also expected to feature in the plan.

The Chinese aim to grow their economy around seven per cent in the next five years and concerns have been raised that China's regions will ignore the new environmental targets in pursuit of economic growth.

Wen accepted that the use of GDP-oriented criteria for evaluating economic performance could obstruct the progress of the five-year plan.

"Without radically changing the mindset and criteria assessing the performance of our officials, it would be difficult to achieve the goals set by the five-year plan," he said.

Other officials echoed Wen's sentiments. Zhao Hualin, head of the environment ministry's pollution control office, told reporters on Saturday that the GDP target was a guide and would not supersede environmental goals. Similarly, Zhang Lijun, vice-minister of environmental protection, insisted regional governments would be told to prioritise green growth.

National Energy Association (NEA) deputy minister Qian Zhimin said in an interview with the China Securities Journal that the energy development plan will aim to establish Chinese companies as global leaders in key technologies and sectors, improve the nation's energy infrastructure and nurture its growing renewable energy industries.

He added that particular focus will be dedicated to wind energy, solar energy, biomass energy, clean coal, coalbed methane, gas hydrate, nuclear energy, intelligent power grid and new vehicle fuels.

China is increasingly concerned over the levels of pollution its rapid growth has caused, even though its environment ministry has claimed some improvement over the previous five years.

The country's coal consumption rose by around one billion tonnes from 2006-2010 and Zhang Lijun, vice-minister of environmental protection, told reporters on Saturday that this figure could rise by another billion over the next five years.

He warned that China's new industries were generating vast quantities of dangerous chemicals and electronic waste which, allied with its increasing production of "traditional pollutants", threatened to overwhelm the country.

"We're still a developing country – the standard of living is still not high, employment trends are serious and each level of government is paying attention to economic growth," he said. "In this kind of territory, if we add emissions from another one billion tonnes of coal, how big will the impact be on our environment?"

The five-year plan will include targets to reduce sulphur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand by a further eight per cent in the next five years, while nitrogen oxide and ammonium nitrate use will also be cut by eight to 10 per cent.

Zhang said the country should consider curbing car ownership in large cities and capping coal consumption in built-up regions such as the Pearl and Yangtze river deltas if it wanted to meet these goals.