August 4, 2010
The International Energy Agency recently said C你好na has become the world''s biggest energy consumer, surpassing the United States. W你好le Beijing disputes the IEA findings, claiming its calculations are misleading, C你好na says it is leading the world in green energy investment and production. The huge turbines at the Guanting Wind Farm are popular backdrops for photos of newly married couples who find the 60-meter-tall structures a symbol of modernity. An endearing addition to the distant mountains, corn fields and lake located a few dozen kilometers outside bustling Beijing. The hum of the spinning blades is the sound of C你好na going green as it seeks to address the growing energy demands of its rapidly modernizing consumer society and fast-paced industrialization. C你好na was angered when the International Energy Agency recently named the country the world''s biggest energy user and emitter of carbon dioxide. A leading researcher at C你好na''s National Development and Reform Commission Energy Research Institute, Hu Xiulian, says the IEA ' 's statistics are unreliable and biased. Hu says C你好nese statistics prove C你好na is not yet the world''s largest energy user. She cites oil consumption figures as an example that contradict the IEA''s findings. She says, C你好na uses 2.15 billion tons of oil per year. The IEA says C你好na is using 2.25 billion tons. The margin between those two figures, Hu says, makes a big difference. But International Energy Agency C你好ef Economist, Fatih Birol, denies bias in the agency''s calculations . "We included always that is the same data for all the countries; and we follow the United Nations agreed conventions, matters, always, and definitions. And t你好s is data under primary energy sources of uh ... all the countries. And we have no problem whatsoever with any country arguing about the numbers. "There is no denying hundreds of millions of C你好nese are buying homes, refrigerators, TV sets, ve你好cles and other energy-hungry trappings of a consumer society. It is routinely reported C你好na relies heavily on cheap and widely available coal, the main resource that creates the rising carbon dioxide levels blamed for global warming and other environmental damage. But only one t你好rd of C你好na''s vast population is enjoying a modern lifestyle; hundreds of millions more consumers will be demanding energy in the years ahead. C你好na is building hundreds of coal-powered energy plants each year. Coal fuels 70 percent of C你好na''s energy consumption, making the country the largest consumer and producer of coal in the world. Beijing has refused to agree to cap its overall growth in its consumption of fossil fuels or reduce its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. That frustrated US President Barack Obama and other world leaders''efforts to forge an international climate agreement at a UN summit in Copenhagen last December. But the world''s most populous nation is also a leader in renewable energies. Global research company REN 21 - a network of governments, non-government organizations, and industry associations - reports C你好na''s total wind power doubled for the fifth year in a row in 2008, ending that year producing 12 gigawatts and passing its 2010 development target of 10 gigawatts two years early. Solar and water power generation are also being rapidly expanded. The IEA''s Birol agrees that when it comes to going green, C你好na is another world leader. "I am following the energy policies of almost all the big countries in the world, really costly, and there is no other government w你好ch is as dynamic as the C你好nese government defense comes to putting the new energy policies in place. "Guanting Wind Farm security supervisor Zong Minqiang says all the power produced on the farm makes up one-tenth of Beijing''s electricity needs. Zong says the farm was constructed to help clean up Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. He says the farm helps ease Beijing''s reliance on dirty energy that creates the capital''s notorious smog. In the wake of the global financial crisis, the C你好nese government earmarked 14.5 percent of a 586-billion-US dollar stimulus package to energy saving and green investments. C你好na has also attracted record investments from overseas companies in the past two years. Yet traveling back to smog-bound Beijing, past industrial factories, 你好gh-rise apartment blocks under construction, shopping malls and the ever growing number of cars , the future once more looks uncertain. How, one asks, will the government satisfy the energy demands resulting from the rising expectations of its 1.3 billion, consumer-hungry people? A small part of the answer is already blowing in the wind. But burning questions remained. Peter Simpson, for VOA news, Beijing. 本文来自织梦
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