The strong economic rebound is a remarkable feat, but it does not justify the country's backpedaling on its pursuit of energy-saving and environmentally friendly, sustainable growth.

Premier Wen Jiabao's latest warning over the increasing difficulties of fulfilling the country's energy-saving goals highlighted a major cost of the country's stimulus package, rolled out in late 2008 to battle the worst global recession in decades.

The gap between China's energy-efficiency reality and its aim to cut energy intensity by 20 percent between 2006 and 2010 is certainly disappointing.

At a State Council meeting on April 28, Premier Wen sounded the alarm about the danger facing the country's progress on energy conservation - it has slowed and even gone into reverse recently.

Since late last year, the green light was given to a number of energy-consuming and polluting industries to facilitate economic recovery. Such temporary easing on environmental and energy-efficiency regulations may have been necessary at that time to cushion the Chinese economy against the global recession. But it also put an undeniable dent on the national campaign to increase energy efficiency.

China's use of energy per unit of GDP has fallen by 14.38 percent over the past four years, still short of the national goal of a 20 percent drop during the five years ending in 2010.

Worse, as economic growth accelerated to 11.9 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, the fastest growth in nearly three years, China's electricity consumption soared even faster, jumping by 24 percent to bring down, instead of improve, overall energy efficiency.

The strong economic rebound is a remarkable feat, but it does not justify the country's backpedaling on its pursuit of energy-saving and environmentally friendly, sustainable growth.

(China Daily 04/30/2010 page8)