Chinese Energy Intensity Goals

Xinhua, the Chinese official news agency released the following item yesterday (I deleted points that are not relevant to this blog DS):

February 28, 2011

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao during an on-line chat with the public Sunday answered questions concerning economic growth targets, housing prices, migrant workers, currency exchange rate reform, health care insurance, and other matters.

The following are some important figures he mentioned during the chat:

-- The government is to set its annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth target for the 2011-2015 period at 7 percent.

-- The government aims to reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP by 16 to 17 percent by 2015 from the current levels.

-- The government set a goal of reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP by around 20 percent from 2005 levels by the end of 2010 and achieved a 19.1-percent decrease.

-- The real value of the Chinese yuan has gained 53 percent against the U.S. dollar since the mid-1990s, and 22 percent since 2005 when China initiated its exchange rate reform.

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The government previously claimed that the 20% energy intensity target had been achieved. The goal of reducing energy intensity by 16-17% in the next five years means that energy intensity needs to be cut by 11% in 2015-2020 to meet the goal of reducing emissions intensity by 40% between 2005 and 2020 if all the net cut in emissions intensity comes from improved energy intensity.

The final item above is relevant to yesterday's post.