China Keen on Action in Global Efforts Against Climate Change

The cement industry in China scrapped 340 million tonnes of outdated cement production capacity from 2006 to 2010. The country has set a further goal of eliminating another 250 million tonnes in the next five years.

After 14 days of talks in Durban, South Africa, delegates to the UN Climate Change Conference this December agreed on the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, saving the world's only legally-binding treaty on curbing climate change from collapse.

China, which does not have mandatory emissions cuts obligations under the protocol, has made its own commitment. The country first promulgated its control on greenhouse gas emissions in 2009, when it pledged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 40 to 45 percent compared to 2005 levels by 2020.

By 2015, it aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 17 percent compared to the level in 2010, according to its 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015). Meanwhile, it plans to cut energy intensity per unit of GDP by 16 percent.

Miao Wei said these targets are challenging, revealing that China is facing great challenges in achieving its annual target of reducing energy consumption this year as the expansion of high-energy-consuming industries fuels energy demand. Energy consumption per unit of industrial value-added output only dropped 2.56 percent year-on-year in the first three quarters, which was far below the annual target of 4 percent.

Miao said that the ministry would make greater efforts in pushing forward energy conservation and emissions reduction this year by strictly controlling the number of new projects that are polluting and highly demanding of energies.

Confronted with the grave situation, Shandong province in east China has "blacklisted" 288 energy-intensive companies with high emissions while ordering 40 of them to scale back or halt production.