In recent years, China’s energy consumption has maintained a huge increase. According to figures provided by Dai Yande, deputy director of the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, 2012 is the lowest growth rate of China's economy in the past 10 years. It is also the most relaxed year for energy supply and demand in recent years, but the growth in total energy consumption remains More than 140 million tons of standard coal was added in 2011. In 2013, due to the increase in infrastructure investment, the accelerated development of urbanization, the effect of reelection, rising economic growth, and people's livelihood projects, the growth rate of total energy consumption must be accelerated.

It is expected that during the “12th Five-Year Plan” and “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan” period, China will still be in a stage of rapid development of industrialization and urbanization. Until 2020, energy consumption demand may still maintain about 200 million tons of standard coal annually since 2000. With the growth rate, the total energy demand by 2020 is likely to reach 5.3 billion tons of standard coal. "If you really reach this number, not only will energy supply be difficult to guarantee, but the environment will not be able to stand. Some local ecological environmental carrying capacity is already near the limit," Dai Yande emphasized.

The huge and fast-growing energy consumption has made China's energy dependence on foreign countries rise rapidly. From the perspective of China's primary energy consumption structure in 2011, coal accounted for 68.4%, oil accounted for 18.6%, natural gas accounted for 5.0%, and other energy sources accounted for a very small proportion. Since becoming a net oil importer in 1993, China’s dependence on foreign oil has increased by 6% from that year.

On October 24, 2012, the State Council Information Office issued the "China's Energy Policy (2012)" ***, which pointed out that China's foreign oil dependence has reached 57%. In 2012, China imported 290 million tons of coal, which is the highest record ever. In 2006, China became a net importer of natural gas, and its dependence on natural gas in 2012 was close to one-third.

From an international perspective, the energy situation is not optimistic. Taking oil as an example, in the article “China’s Energy Security and Strategic Choices” published by the China Strategic Thinking Bank in September 2012, China’s overseas oil sources are mainly concentrated in the Middle East and Africa, and the oil in these two places is the source of imports. Imports of ** national oil imports 3/4. This area is also the source of oil in Asia and Europe. With the ever-increasing contradiction between supply and demand of international energy, the energy competition between Asia and Europe will intensify, and the energy competition among Asian countries will also intensify.

Now, the important position of Middle East oil and gas in the US energy supply map is gradually weakening. This change will lead to profound changes in the global energy landscape and will have a greater impact on China's energy security. If American forces withdraw from the Middle East, one of the most important issues facing China is the safety of oil and gas passages.

After the policy entangled with the party's "16th National Congress," the State Council Development Research Center coordinating organization National Development and Reform Commission Energy Research Institute, Ministry of Science and Technology Development Research Center, China Environmental Planning Institute, Tsinghua University, Coal Information Institute and other units jointly conducted "China Energy Comprehensive Development Strategy and Policy Study." The project was established in November 2002 and completed in August 2004, forming the "China Energy Development Strategy and Policy Research Report."

At that time, it was predicted that by 2020 China's primary energy demand would be between 2.5 billion and 3.3 billion tons of standard coal. However, in 2010 China’s total primary energy consumption reached 325 million tons, which is 10 years ahead of schedule.

The energy strategy proposed at the time was "guarantee supply, energy conservation priority, structural optimization, environmental friendliness, and market promotion." Feng Fei, one of the writers of the general report at that time, believed that the energy conservation work was indeed given unprecedented attention among the strategies put forward at that time, and it had made global achievements. During the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” period, China’s economy grew rapidly. Achieved the goal of a 20% reduction in energy consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP, but "structure optimization" and "market promotion" are not satisfactory. The anticipated energy consumption demand in 2004 will be realized 10 years in advance. The important reason is that the development of heavy industry exceeds expectations.

In October 2010, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee was held. The "reasonable control of energy consumption" began to enter the national policy-making horizon. Prior to this, domestic energy research institutions have conducted special studies on this rigid, highly binding energy policy. However, from the beginning of the new policy, all parties’ open controversies and private doubts have not subsided, and the implementation plan for total energy consumption control has not yet been introduced.

The key point of entanglement is that energy is the blood of the economy. If the total energy consumption is strictly controlled, it means limiting the speed of economic growth. At present, the level of economic development in China is not very high. The task of getting out of poverty is still arduous. Uneven development across the country, local governments are the main subjects of strong interest, and they are also the spokespersons of relevant stakeholders in their respective jurisdictions, concerning issues concerning local development rights. There is absolutely no possibility of easy compromise.

Turning to “economic incentives” on January 10th, the “Blue Carbon Development Report of China (2013)” Blue Book, written by the Climate Policy Research Center of Tsinghua University, was published, and it is believed that China’s low-carbon development mechanism is inevitable.

"In fact, the government is already considering and formulating economic incentive policies," said Feng Fei.

At the end of 2011, the State Council decided to revise the Provisional Regulations on the Resource Tax of the People's Republic of China, increase the method of assessing the rate of ad valorem rates on the basis of the measurement of the existing resources tax quota, and adjust the tax rates of crude oil, natural gas and other items. At the end of 2012, the "Guiding Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Deepening the Market-oriented Reform of Coal Electricity" was formally released, proposing that the dual-track system for coal prices would be abolished since 2013 and the key coal contracts would be cancelled. The National Development and Reform Commission will no longer issue annual inter-provincial coal railways. Capacity configuration intention frame.

In August 2010, the National Development and Reform Commission formally launched a low-carbon pilot project, which is a key way for China’s low-carbon development policies and institutional innovations. The pilots for low-carbon provinces and low-carbon cities in five provinces and eight cities were identified respectively. The carbon emissions trading pilots in five cities and two provinces explored ways for policy and institutional innovation.

Feng Fei believes that the next step should be devoted to energy structure optimization and marketization reform, and should focus on how to introduce more market competition in the energy sector. It is not inconsistent to control the total energy consumption and energy policies to shift to economic incentive policies. Controlling total energy consumption is a macro goal. Economic incentive policies use more economical means to accomplish goals and mobilize the enthusiasm of all parties to the greatest extent. Therefore, the economic cost of the whole society is lower.

"We should believe that China has such wisdom." Zhou Fuqiu pointed out that although the "reasonable" word has been removed from the policy statement to control total energy consumption, in fact, the way to control total energy consumption must also be scientific, reasonable, effective and Operable.

Zhou Fuqiu believes that if total control is required, this control must be "flexible." In the short term, it should be used as a qualitative assessment at the level of local government work, rather than the "accountability system" implemented in energy conservation work in China since 2005. In the long run, his proposal is to separate the energy consumption from the increase in the amount of energy consumption, verify the stock, and reasonably control the increments. The newly added projects must be low-energy and low-emission projects, and the country should set corresponding technical standards. As a result, the Chinese economy has achieved higher quality growth.

One of the preconditions and necessary conditions for the implementation of total energy consumption control is to be able to accurately calculate the energy consumption of the entire society, regions, and enterprises of the “Eleventh Five Year Plan” and each year of the “Twelfth Five Year Plan”. However, due to many factors such as the accounting basis, accounting methods, accounting willingness, and accounting ability, this will be a complicated task that is difficult to accomplish. The weak basic of energy measurement and statistics in China is an objective reality. how to solve this problem? Zhou Fuqiu said that the way is to start with the total power consumption control. Because electricity consumption can realize real-time measurement, real-time monitoring and timely feedback. At the same time, there is a relatively stable proportional relationship between electricity consumption and energy consumption in countries, regions and enterprises. "The idea of ​​"double control" of controlling the total amount of primary energy consumption and controlling the total amount of electricity consumption is now relatively clear."