Last
month, China’s National Development and Reform Commission released the
long-awaited 12th Five Year Plan for its coal industry, which aims to
curb China’s national coal production and consumption at around 3.9
billion tons by 2015. But how an increasingly market-oriented Chinese
economy can meet those targets remains unclear, and the plan itself
offers no road map. In addition, an increasingly noticeable discrepancy
in coal consumption between national and provincial sources may
eventually undermine the credibility of any government issued coal
industry targets.
China has long relied on domestically abundant coal – which accounts for
95 percent of the country’s proven fossil fuel reserves – to fuel its
booming economy. Despite a prolonged governmental effort to retard the
destructive environmental effects of the coal consumption spike,
currently coal still accounts for nearly 70 percent of China’s national
energy consumption and about 80 percent of its electricity production.
In 2009, carbon emissions ...
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