China facing severe environmental challenges: lawmaker

BEIJING - China continues to face severe challenges in energy conservation and emission reduction, a senior lawmaker in charge of environment-related legislation said on Tuesday.

With only two years left to achieve targets set in the country's 12th five year plan (2011-2015), China needs to step up efforts to cut energy consumption per unit of GDP by 16 percent by the end of 2015, said Lu Hao, director of the National People's Congress (NPC) Environmental Protection and Resources Conservation Committee.

"This means China would have to cut its energy consumption per unit of GDP by at least 3.9 percent each year for the next two years to achieve that goal," Lu said on the sidelines of a bimonthly NPC session.

He said overcapacity high energy consumption and highly polluting industries, coupled with an imbalanced energy structure and the discharge of pollutants, has put enormous pressure on the country's energy conservation and emission reduction initiatives.

Insufficient monetary and policy incentives and unsatisfactory law enforcement also added to the challenges, he said.