Ma Kai, minister in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission, answers a question at a press conference in Beijing on Monday, June 4, 2007. China's national action plan on climate change was released at the press conference. [ciic]

The Chinese government has reiterated its intention to meet strict energy efficiency and pollutant reduction targets, which it failed last year, in an official work plan published in Beijing Sunday.

The General Work Plan for Energy Conservation and Pollutant Discharge Reduction shows that China will stick to the original plan of energy saving as well as reducing major pollutant discharges by 10 percent.

Under a five-year plan to 2010, China pledged to cut energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 20 percent, or four percent each year, but consumption fell by just 1.23 percent last year.

Electricity, steel, nonferrous metals, construction materials, oil processing and chemicals, the six high energy-consuming and highly polluting industries, which account for nearly 70 percent of energy consumption and sulfur dioxide discharges of the entire industrial sector, grew by 20.6 percent in the first quarter of 2007, 6.6 percentage points higher than the same period a year earlier.

The plan criticized government departments for their poor awareness of the importance of energy efficiency and pollutant reduction.

China will reform the mechanism of evaluating local governments and their leaders by including the implementation of energy-saving and emission-reduction tasks into their performances, the plan said, and it asked relevant departments to work out detailed measures for this reform.

Together with Ministry of Finance, the State Environmental Protection Administration and five other authorities, China's top economic planner National Development and Reform Commission has kicked off a campaign to ensure the elimination of high-energy consuming and heavy-polluting industries.

The campaign, aimed at curbing excessive growth of energy consuming and polluting industries, will run until the end of June, focusing on the iron and steel, copper, alumina, cement, power and coking sectors.

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