China played a critical role in the slower growth of global energy demand and consumption as well as the nearly flat growth of carbon emissions in 2016, according to the latest BP world energy report. The report says that a relentless drive to improve energy efficiency is causing global energy consumption overall to decelerate. The energy mix is shifting toward cleaner, lower carbon fuels, driven by environmental needs and technological advances. Global energy consumption grew slowly again in 2016 - the third consecutive year in which demand has grown by 1 percent or less - much weaker than the rates of growth over the previous 10 years or so, according to the report titled 2017 BP Statistical Review of World Energy. The weak growth in energy demand, combined with a continuing shift toward lower-carbon fuels, meant global carbon emissions from energy consumption were estimated to have been essentially flat in 2016 for a third consecutive year - a substantial improvement relative to past trends, the report says. "From a global level, much of this improvement can be traced back to the pronounced changes in the pace and pattern of economic growth and energy consumption within China," BP Group CEO Bob Budley said in the report. Energy consumption in China grew by just 1.3 percent in 2016. Its growth during 2015 and 2016 was the lowest over a two-year period since 1997-98, according to the report. China, however, remained the world's largest growth market for energy for a 16th consecutive year. Spencer Dale, BP Group chief economist, praised effective Chinese government policy launched in 2016 to reduce coal production. "For those of you interested in the Chinese policy, it's magnificent," he said on Thursday at the Atlantic Council in Washington. "It's really fascinating to think about how it was designed. The impact of these measures was really stark," Dale said. China was the key driver of the growth of global renewable energy last year, accounting for more than 40 percent of the growth in renewable power, more than the entire OECD put together. China also overtook the US as the largest producer of renewable power. Dale believes China is the key to understanding the flat growth of global carbon emissions and whether that trend is structural or just temporary. Some structural changes happening in China include slower economic growth, a change in the structure of economic growth away from energy-intensive industrial sectors toward the consumer and service sector, and a shift in the fuel mix away from coal toward more renewable energy, nuclear power and natural gas, according to Dale. "Those trends are structural trends and are likely to persist," he said. He also pointed out that the fall of China's energy demand was also due to the weakness reflected in the iron, steel and cement industries, which together account for a quarter of China's energy demand. Dale, who was executive director for financial stability at the Bank of England before joining BP in 2014, expressed how much this is going to structural and how much it is going to be temporary adjustment is still hard to tell. [email protected]silicone fidget spinnerrubber wristbands custom cheapprinted wristbandscustom printed wristbandsmake your own rubber braceletcustom rubber band braceletscustomise fidget spinner
File photo shows Kuomintang Honorary Chairman Lien Chan leaves Peking University with his wife Lien Fang-yu during their visit in Beijing in 2014. [Photo/China Daily] The upcoming visit of Lien Chan, former chairman of the Chinese Kuomintang in Taiwan, to Beijing next week shows a gesture to ease tensions across the Taiwan Straits, a scholar said on Friday. Lien will lead a delegation to visit the mainland from July 12 to 14, An Fengshan, spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, announced on Friday. Following the stop in Beijing, the delegation will visit Liaoning, Jilin and Zhejiang provinces, he said. Lien is also chairman of a foundation on cross-Straits peaceful development. According to Taiwan media, the delegation has about 50 powerful figures from the island, including Terry Guo, founder and chairman of Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer and major suppler for Apple. Lien's visit comes amid rising tension between the mainland and Taiwan, as Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen has failed to recognize the 1992 Consensus, which embodies the one-China principle, and her right-hand man, the island's executive head Lai Ching-te, publicly called himself a Taiwan independence worker. Scholars have noted that Tsai's recent behavior, such as calling on the international community to constrain the Chinese mainland, courting foreign support and creating hostility among people from the mainland and Taiwan, will enhance confrontation in cross-Straits relations. Wang Hailiang, a Taiwan studies researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said Lien's coming visit is more likely a symbolic gesture that shows Lien's stance to help ease the tension between the mainland and Taiwan. But Lien is no longer the leader of the KMT and the impact of his visit may be limited, Wang said. Lien, who retired as KMT chairman in August 2005, has been an important figure in the history of the relationship between the Communist Party of China and KMT, and in the history of cross-Straits relations. In April 2005, as then KMT leader, he visited the Chinese mainland and met Hu Jintao, then general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, breaking the ice that had existed for half a century. It was the first meeting for leaders of the two parties since 1949. After that, Lien visited the mainland a dozen times, and met general secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
