The executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Thursday called on China to improve its energy efficiency, underlining that the current growth in consumption was "unacceptable". "If nothing changes, energy consumption in China will grow by more than 50 percent between 2005 and 2030 with fossil fuels remaining dominant, becoming 80 percent of China's energy dependency," said Claude Mandil, director of the IEA, which advises governments on energy security.
"This trend is unacceptable and not sustainable," he added during a financial conference in Tianjin, east of Beijing.
China, which has a fifth of the world's population, is the second-largest consumer of energy in the world, but currently uses less than 10 percent of the oil.
In an interview with AFP, Mandil praised China for setting "ambitious targets" for reducing its energy use, but emphasised the need to improve energy efficiency as well as develop alternative sources of energy.
The Chinese government's 11th five-year plan (2006-2010) set a target of reducing energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by four per cent. The government failed to meet the target in 2006.
China is lumbered with a large amount of heavy industry, as well as vast carbon coal reserves. It consumes 0.94 tonnes of oil for every 1,000 dollars of GDP, compared to Japan, which uses just 0.11 tonnes.
Source: Agence France-Presse
