We should not only pass a law on saving energy but also put it in real practice to cope with the approaching energy crisis, says an article in Beijing News. The following is an excerpt:

This summer, Shanghai will adopt new measures of curbing energy waste in offices and these measures will be first introduced among government employees. As the new measures require, office workers should wear cool dresses without suits and ties except for some special occasions like foreign affairs; employees are encouraged to walk stairs instead of taking lifts for going to floors below four, to use pool cars or take buses as they go out on business.

With rapid economic progress, energy becomes a bottleneck. As we all know, the revised Energy Conservation Law was put into force on April 1 and it rules that every citizen should save energy and do it according to law. As the revised law stipulates, our country adopts the basic national policy of conserving energies and implement the strategy of attaching equal importance to both energy conservation and development. From this, we can see the conservation of resources has been a basic national policy and has the general legal power and priority for the whole nation.

So, energy-saving is not a temporary practice, but a long-term cause. It is not an individual issue but the common cause of the whole nation.

In practice, there is still room for government bodies to improve in energy-saving. Recently Hubei province released the auditing results on energy consumption of 20 provincial government buildings, including the construction bureau, the transportation bureau and the development and reform bureau. Their average annual power consumption per square meter is three to four times that of the average residential buildings.

Let's take a look at the government vehicles. In April 2004, cars in Beijing numbered 1.35 million, among which 360,000 were used by government bodies, accounting for 26.7 percent. Although the number of government vehicles is less than that of private cars, the government vehicles are used more frequently than the latter for the costs are not paid by individuals but by the government.

Given such facts, we can see how precious the new measures taken by Shanghai are. We should clearly see that the reality is not that satisfactory. For example, oil-saving cars are still shunned by buyers and power-saving lights are hard to be popularized among citizens.

(China Daily June 19, 2008)