China falls short on building-energy targets

Developers are still building "energy-guzzling" buildings in China, flying in the face of sustainability pledges made during their design, Reuters quoted state media as reporting on Monday.
English

To secure energy and resources for its booming economy, China has set targets to make new buildings 50% more energy efficient by 2010. But only 53% of new buildings has met energy-conservation standards, the China Daily said, citing a construction ministry survey that blamed cost-cutting developers.

Song Chunhua, president of the China Real Estate Association, called the findings "alarming". Construction and building materials consume 16 to 18% of China’s energy use, analysts have estimated. About half of the world’s new buildings go up in China each year.

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