the ministry of industry and information technology (miit) proclaimed four compulsory targets, which will now require an 18% reduction of energy consumption for per unit of industrial output, with a minimum reduction of 18% in carbon dioxide emissions and 30% in water usage by 2015 from the level at the end of 2010. also, the utilization rate of industrial solid waste will be raised to 72%. the ministry made it clear that the three reduction targets for 2011 are 4%, more than 4% and 7%, respectively, while a 2.2 percentage points of increase is expected in the use of industrial solid wastes.
su bo, vice minister of miit, said on march 28 at a meeting in nanjing that those targets will be persistently pursued, and those reduction targets are higher than what had been proposed previously and would be likely to be included in the industrial upgrading plan, which is being drafted by miit now. he said the index will cover water use, carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide emissions, chemical oxygen demand (cod), nitric oxide and ammonia nitrogen.
zhou changyi, head of the department responsible for policy making of energy efficiency, described those commitments as something “attainable if sufficient efforts are made.” “industry should play the leading role in energy saving and emissions reduction, as it is the area where energy consumption and pollutant emissions mainly take place. it is difficult to get the whole industry motivated to engage in that course if targets are too soft,” he said.
su bo stressed that the key to fulfilling the targets include industrial restructuring, technical upgrading and better management of the energy efficiency of enterprises.
zhou changyi urged local governments to set their targets of energy consumption cuts for per unit of industrial output this year. the miit will not impose quantitative standards for local governments, but will step up supervision over energy-intensive enterprises.
in the last five years, china’s per unit industrial output have cost 26% less energy in aggregate than the level in 2005 as a result of the annual decrease of 5.8%. that means china saved 750 million tons of standard coal equivalent. the 6.98% of annual energy consumption growth propped up an 11.57% growth of industrial output increase.
