| Abstract |
China’s 11th Five Year Plan (FYP) sets an ambitious target for energy efficiency improvement : energy intensity of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP ) should be reduced by 20% from 2005 to 2010. This goal signals a major shift in China’s strategic thinking about its long -term economic and energy development. It also provides further evidence that the Chinese government is serious in its call for a new “scientific development perspective” to assure sustainability in accordance with long-run carrying capacity of the natural environment. This target for energy efficiency is likely to be difficult to achieve, considering that energy consumption has grown more rapidly than GDP in the last five years and , as a result, energy use per unit of GDP (energy intensity) has increased. This recent trend in energy intensity stands in sharp contrast to the trend observed from 1980 to 2000, when energy demand grew less than half as fast as GDP and energy intensity declined steadily. China’s long-term development plan, which calls for a quadrupling of GDP and doubling of energy use from 2000 to 2020, was based on this earlier experience, as are projections of China’s energy consumption by major Chinese and international institutions. However, if the recent trend continues, not only will it jeopardize China’s development goals, it will also create significantly greater adverse environmental impacts and major threats to long-run sustainability. Further, it could introduce a huge “unexpected” disturbance to the global energy and climate system. It is in recognition of the likely costs of “run-away” energy growth that China’s leaders have decided to highlight the need to reduce energy intensity. |
