In a classic manifestation of “the more you have, the more you worry” syndrome, China's energy chief said this week that the country is under greater pressure to ensure energy supply this year as both demand and international competition for resources grows.
Of course China is not the only country worried about energy supplies but it is the world's largest energy consumer, surpassing the US in 2010. Year-on-year China's power consumption rose 11.7 percent to 4.7 trillion kWh in in 2011 but this year growth is expected to slow to 8.5 percent amid the country's economic slowdown.
China looks likely to levy a carbon tax within the next three years to tighten its regulations on polluting industries and put the economy on a greener path according to a China Dailyreport.
A draft of a new system of taxation has been submitted by the Fiscal Science Research Center of the Ministry of Finance to the ministry for review. The plan would impose a tax on emissions of greenhouse gases, Su Ming, deputy director of the center, said on Thursday.
The China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), has officially submitted a registration application to China's Ministry of Civil Affairs to establish a marine charity.
A maritime court in the northern coastal city of Tianjin yesterday accepted a case of compensation claims from aquaculture farmers who believe the oil leaked from the ConocoPhillips-operated oil field platforms in Bohai Sea resulted in their businesses losses.
China's energy consumption per GDP is 2.2 times the world average, said Zhang Ping, director of the National Development and Reform Commission, the Legal Evening News reported.
China's Shenhua Group will build the largest coal-fired power station in Asia over the next five years, the Xinhua news agency said Tuesday, as the country struggles to meet its energy needs.
Reuters reported today that the Chinese government has called on the country’s biggest energy users to save 250 million tonnes of standard coal in the five years ending 2015.
Perusahaan Listrik Negara, (PLN) Indonesia’s state-owned utility, will allocate Rp 69 trillion (USD7.59 billion) for capital expenditures in 2012, according to a statement distributed to reporters in Jakarta yesterday.
The Korea Herald yesterday reported that South Korea’s first integrated gasification combined cycle power plant, a type of renewable energy production unit, broke ground last month in Taean, South Chungcheong Province, aboout 100 kilometers outside Seoul.
Police fired teargas to break up demonstrations on Thursday over a proposed power plant in a southern China town, where protests have escalated into clashes with police this week and officials tried to calm tempers by suspending the project, according to a Reuters report.
Vietnam press agencies are abuzz with the news the carbon capture and storage is an industry the country will be investing in. During a two-day conference, titled “Carbon Capture and Storage in Vietnam”, which was organised by the ADB, the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) and the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Global demand for coal will continue to expand aggressively over the next five years despite public calls in many countries for reducing reliance on the high-carbon fuel as a primary energy source, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a new annual publication, Medium-Term Coal Market Report 2011, released this week.
The COP17 climate talks in Durban have come to an end with 16,000 delegates from 190 countries having struggled for a fortnight with the sheer procedural difficulties of negotiation on that scale. The drama of shifting alliances, with the less developed nations and island states siding with the EU to fire a warning shot across the bows of the BASIC block (or should that now be the BASICUS block) was diverting, but it is no surprise that the new roadmap for international action on climate change doesn't actually provide much guidance to the future.
Following the disasterous oil spill off the city of Dalian last year, the boss of the state-run CNPC oil firm has been officially told off. Chairman Jiang Jiemin was given a disciplinary warning by the State Council, something that rarely happens.
It has been widely reported by China news media that the country’s top economic planner has confirmed that it has approved seven pilot greenhouse gas (GHG) emission rights trading schemes in an effort to encourage carbon emission reductions.
The municipalities and provinces given the green-light include Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Hubei and Guangdong, an official with the National Development and Reform Commission told Xinhua under the condition of anonymity.
A 12th Five-Year Plan for China’s environmental protection sector will reportedly be issued in mid-December, with a series of policies set to be released that will benefit companies involved in emission reductions.
China's State Oceanic Administration (SOA) has affirmed that that spills at an oilfield operated by ConocoPhillips in the Bohai Bay resulted from defects in the company's production and management.
While Thailand is to benefit from a new hydropower plant in Lao financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), it is also getting its own loan of USD170 million for a new clean tech power plant in Thailand.
While carbon dioxide emissions in emerging and developing countries continued to grow up to 3.3 percent in 2009, led by Asia and the Middle East, emissions of industrialized countries fell 6.5 percent - putting them at 6.4 percent below their 1990 collective level, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA)
A new complex solar project has captured a final USD346 million of investment from Hanas New Energy Group (Hanas) and construction has begun. The 92.5MW integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) trough solar power plant in Ningxia, China, is Asia's first ISCC.
This report by the World Bank spells out what the world would be like if it warmed by 4 degrees Celsius, which is what scientists are nearly unanimously predicting by the end of the century, without serious policy changes.
Companies in Asia reveal expectations that regulations that could lead to rising costs for reporting and reducing GHG emissions will also be the main sources of climate-related business opportunities.
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