Who and How to Rein China's Industrial Energy?

The paper takes as its point of departure the relations between, on the one hand, challenges in addressing sustainability issues connected to energy and electricity and, on the other hand, the existence of fundamental differences among international and Chinese stakeholders in preconceptions about the nature of these challenges. [...] It may therefore be used to provide an answer to the title question’s how? – assuming who and with what, futures studies can help exploring in what way? At the core of the complex of problems viewed in this paper lies the topic of China’s energy future, which is an area intensely researched and the subject of many opinions, warnings, ambitions and pieces of advice. [...] The following sections of the paper aim to give a short insight into how the three 1 There is a need to address briefly a terminological issue of some importance in this context, namely the usage of the words forecast and scenario. [...] The first stage constituted direct input to the SDPC during the process of formulating the energy conservation component of the current (tenth) five-year plan, which covers the period from 2001 to 2005. [...] Such differences in perception are the source of a feeling in China that the western world is hypocritical and is not playing fair when issues such as technology diffusion and promotion of the international investment climate are raised in the same breath.