Moving ahead confidently on the energy front

Lucid waters and lush mountains are the nation's goals, President Xi Jinping has said. Since he became the top leader, China has taken every possible measure to make environmental protection one of the government's principal guidelines as it deals with eco-problems and economic restructuring.

More than 20 years ago, in nearly every development program, China set the goal of transforming its development patterns, which were heavily reliant on energy, especially fossil fuel consumption. Although China's economy grew at double digits for long, the economic growth caused heavy environmental damage. Besides, China has not yet fulfilled its objectives of changing its development patterns.

But preliminary figures now indicate that Xi's team is on track to deliver on its promise. For instance, China's coal consumption decreased 2.9 percent and 3.6 percent year-on-year in 2014 and 2015. And even though the consumption figure for the first half of this year is not yet available, coal production is believed to have dropped year-on-year by 9.7 percent in the January-June period.