Expert Blog

China’s annual parliamentary session opened Saturday morning, with 3,000 National People’s Congress members and 2,000 members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) gathered in the Great Hall of the People to hear Premier Wen Jiabao deliver the annual report reviewing the work of the government in 2010 and looking forward to the Twelfth Five Year Plan, including key targets of the Twelfth Five Year Plan.

China’s annual political meetings begin on Thursday March 3 and the major outcome will be the announcement of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015). Votes at both the advisory China People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC, opening March 3) and the National People’s Congress (NPC, opening March 5) are not in question. But the content of the Five-Year Plan, as well as various government work reports and major pieces of legislation, are only revealed during the meetings.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a hearing on Wednesday, February 16th, to receive testimony from Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu on the Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Request. In the Chairman’s opening statement, Senator Bingaman (D-NM) said: “…we actually spend less than China on energy R&D per unit of GDP. China is investing heavily in manufacturing and deploying wind, solar, and nuclear power plants. These investments are already translating into global sales and domestic Chinese jobs in an area where the United States once led the world.”

A team of researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s China Energy Group recently released an in-depth study on China’s industrial energy auditing practices. Because China’s industrial sector accounts for roughly two thirds of China’s total energy consumption, industrial energy audits play a critical role in assessing the efficacy of China’s policies and progress in improving energy efficiency.