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| Chinese iron fist on emissions has steel industry gasping - 10 Sep, 2010 | ||
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An Abrupt command from Beijing to follow through with iron fisted energy and carbon emission cuts has thrown China's industrial heartlands into chaos. Steel factories across the country are slashing production implying a rocky outlook for Australian commodities such as iron ore while smaller Chinese industrialists have been arbitrarily plunged into darkness. An office manager at Wanxing wire mesh factory in Anping of Hebei province said that we had no water to flush the toilet, we couldn't use the fridge and, of course, production stopped. The manager said that he had struggled through 10 days of random black outs some as long as 22 hours. We often didn't hear the power cut notices partly because we couldn't watch TV. Chinese media reported that the county had also turned off power to homes, hospitals and even traffic lights prompting a notice from Beijing that it had gone too far. This energy efficiency drive reflects Beijing's last minute lunge to make good on a pledge to reduce energy use per unit of economic output by 20% over the 5 years ending this December. More than a quarter of that improvement has to be achieved in the last months of this year after earlier energy efficiency gains were blown by Beijing's economic stimulus program. Chinese advisers said that achieving the widely publicized energy target is seen as crucial for maintaining the government's policy credibility as well as China's longer term pledge to reduce the intensity of emissions by 40% to 45% per unit of gross domestic product by 2020. Mr Pan Jiahua climate change policy expert who advised the Politburo this year said that this was not an efficient way to achieve the goal of energy efficiency. Mr Pan who heads the Urban Development and Environment Centre at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said that the 20% target is compulsory so the central government mandated the provincial governments to have their energy cuts and the provincial governments passed this requirement to county level governments and local government officials have no choice but to implement them. Mr Joshua Chen CFO of China's biggest energy consumer Chalco said that ''I haven't heard anything about a carbon emissions tax. But there will be strict carbon emissions quotas for new projects. He added that the controls for new aluminium plants would be very strict. (Sourced from www.smh.com.au) | ||
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