China is also sensitive to complaints about its status as the world’s biggest polluter and suggestions that its demand is pushing up energy prices on global markets.
According to agency statistics, China’s energy consumption has more than doubled in less than a decade, from 1.107 billion tons in 2000 — driven by its burgeoning population and economic growth that hit 11.9 percent in the first quarter of this year.
Per capita, the United States still consumes five times more energy than China, agency chief economist Fatih Birol told The Associated Press.
China’s manufacturing and steel production are booming, and newly prosperous Chinese families, who a generation ago were subsistence farmers, are now buying air conditioners, home electronics, and cars in record numbers.
The surge in energy consumption has turned China into the biggest source of climate-changing greenhouse gases. The government has pledged to curb the growth in its emissions, but has refused to adopt binding restrictions, maintaining that pollution is an unavoidable consequence of the industrialization process.
According to the agency statistics, in 2009, more than half of China’s total energy came from coal, a heavy polluter that accounts for less than one-quarter of US consumption. Oil — the number one energy source in the United States, accounting for nearly half the total — made up less than one-fifth of the Chinese energy total.
The Chinese Cabinet’s National Energy Administration cast doubt on the energy agency’s statistics, according to a report yesterday by the official Xinhua News Agency.
“IEA’s data on China’s energy use is unreliable,’’ said official Zhou Xian, adding that the agency “still lacked understanding about China’s relentless efforts to cut energy use and emissions, notably the country’s aggressive expansion of new energy development.’’
The report cited data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics that said China’s energy consumption last year was equal to 2.132 billion tons of oil — less than the agency figure.
“The trend is undeniable that the Chinese energy consumption is growing very strongly — which is very legitimate, by the way, considering their population — and the energy from the OECD countries, the US, Europe, and Japan, is stagnating,’’ Birol said in a telephone interview.
