China's average energy consumption rose marginally in the six months to June, the first year-on-year increase since 2006, the government said Tuesday, despite pledges to improve efficiency.
The nation's energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) was up by 0.09 percent in the first half from a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement.
It was the first time in four years that the figure rose, according to official data, and could make it difficult for the nation to meet its goal of cutting energy consumption by 20 percent per unit of GDP between 2006 and 2010.
China cut energy use per unit of GDP 14.38 percent between 2006 and 2009, the state Xinhua news agency reported.
Beijing pledged ahead of key climate change talks in Copenhagen late last year that it would embark on a major energy efficiency drive to curb growth in its world-leading greenhouse gas emissions.
Beijing has pledged to reduce its carbon intensity — the measure of emissions per unit of gross domestic product — by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 based on 2005 levels.
Under that plan, however, emissions would continue to climb.
It has also set a target of generating 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources — mainly wind and water — by 2020.
The International Energy Agency recently made an assessment that China last year surpassed the United States to become the world's top energy consumer — a title that was soon rejected by Beijing, which called the data "unreliable".
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