China Environmental Law

The official figures are now out on energy efficiency gains for the first half of 2008.  You may recall that earlier reports had characterized the results as disappointing, but did not give the actual numbers. 

The numbers are disappointing in the sense that they failed to achieve the 4% annualized efficiency improvement target (on a year-on-year basis), but they are slightly ahead of last year’s first half results. China’s “per-unit energy consumption was down 2.88 percent year on year in the first half, official figures revealed on Thursday.”  This figure was “0.1 percentage point more than the same period last year.”

Here are some sector-by-sector breakdowns of the year-on-year first half results as reported by China Daily and Reuters:

• building material sector: down 9.98%
• textile industry: down 9.61%
• coal sector: down 6.74%
• industrial firms with annual sales exceeding 5 million yuan (728,727 U.S. dollars): down 5.76%
• iron and steel sector: down 4.05%
• non-ferrous metal sector: down 3.7%

Since all of these sectors outperformed the aggregate results, one is left asking which ones did not?  The only laggard identified is the “petroleum and petrochemical sector” which reported a decrease of just 1.58%.  There must be others however.

Reflecting on the first half  results

Xie Zhenhua, NDRC’s deputy minister, said there was still a long way to go before China could meet its energy conservation targets. The country had just completed a quarter of its [five year] energy conservation quota during the past two years.

I suspect the timing was only coincidental, but the State Council, according to Xinhua, issued new rules on Thursday addressing “energy conservation in civilian buildings” which include “residences, government office buildings, and structures used for commercial, educational and sanitation purposes.”

The regulations are designed to “reduce energy use and improve efficiency.”  They apparently apply to building designers and contractors as well as owners.  In addition to energy efficiency improvements, the regulations encourage “enterprises and relevant departments to adopt renewable products in new construction, such as solar energy and geothermal.”

As soon as I’ve had a chance to take a look at these final rules, I’ll provide a longer take. 

Happy Olympics!