Energy

中国已为全新碳时代做好准备

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世行“市场准备伙伴合作计划”（PMR）的第五次大会本月初在华盛顿召开了内容丰富、成果丰硕的会议之后已经闭幕。本次大会，我有幸向PMR的参与国家成员阐述了中国市场准备最终方案（MRP）。MRP简言之，就是中国国家排放交易制度设计计划的最终方案。除了中国提交的方案外，智利、哥斯达黎加和墨西哥也在本次PMR大会上提交了它们的最终方案。

Монгол хувилбар байгаа

Financed by the mining boom, government spending on new infrastructure in Mongolia has increased 35-fold in the past 10 years. But you would not know this from driving the pot holed streets of Ulaanbaatar or inhaling the smog filled air of the city, particularly in the ger areas.

A new World Bank report I co-authored examines why this increased spending is not resulting in equivalent benefits for the citizens of Mongolia in terms of better roads, efficient and clean heating, and improved water and sanitation services.

Axel talks about his trip to Myanmar in a video below.

You can feel the energy in Myanmar today—from the streets of Yangon, in the offices of government ministries and in rural villages. Dramatic political and economic changes are sweeping the country.

版本: English

作为拥有成百上千万个家庭和企事业单位使用和依赖能源的国家，如何满足能源供应肯定是中国要面对的巨大挑战。问题是中国如何能找到一种可持续的方式来满足市场对能源的需求？答案在于……

人们自然会想到一个流行词，那就是“可再生能源”。中国当然愿意顺应这一历史发展趋势在实现经济转型的同时保证能源供应和能源安全。中国的可再生能源近些年一直在快车道上高速发展，2011年，中国可再生能源发电量已达到总发电量的20%。

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Henry Ford pernah berkata, ketika ia bertanya kepada para konsumen apa yang mereka mau, mereka menjawab kuda yang lebih cepat. Andai saja ia mendengar permintaan konsumennya, mungkin saja Ford Motor Company tidak akan pernah ada, atau ada tetapi dengan nama Ford Faster Horse Company. Pada saat itu mobil menjadi apa yang disebut “pencarian terobosan inovasi”, yang berarti secara radikal menggantikan teknologi yang ada (kuda dan kereta kuda), tidak dengan mendengar permintaan sebagian besar konsumen tapi mencoba mencari tahu kebutuhan mereka yang sebenarnya.

Building on the story about rural electrification in Laos, let me talk to you about an innovative concept under the electrification program umbrella that focused on those more disadvantaged and with fewer opportunities. This new concept is the Power to the Poor program (P2P).

The P2P scheme was launched in September 2008, although it was identified a few years earlier, in 2005. At that time, a social impact survey was carried out and among all data analyzed, one indicator was outstanding: the pick-up rate in the villages recently electrified was on average only a 70%. What was happening with the remaining 30% of households that were not being connected? It was not a design problem as those households were just a few meters from the electric post. It was, as with many problems in life, a financial problem: the connection fee charged by the power utility, Electricité du Laos (EdL), was too expensive to be paid upfront by the poorest households.

Higher prices have been making headlines in Thailand. Although wages and farm incomes are up, so are the prices of eggs, milk and fried rice. I am definitely feeling the pinch: the price of my favorite beverage—coconut water—has surged following a beetle infestation.

As prices go up, so does the pressure on the government to reign in the spiraling cost of living. But as we discussed in the recently released Thailand Economic Monitor - April 2011, the current inflation challenge is especially tough to tackle.

As we were wrapping up the work on our new China Quarterly Update (of which I am the main author), looking at our main conclusions and messages on economic developments in China, prospects, and the key policy challenges and tasks, I noticed that, despite lots of new data and all the headlines about changes, likely changes and risks, our overall conclusions and views have not changed all that much since June, when we released the last one. Noticing this was sobering but also somehow comforting.

The history of the power sector in Lao PDR is relatively new. 15 years ago, Laos counted with just a couple of large hydropower plants, and a meager 16% of the households throughout the country counted with electricity access, mostly concentrated in Vientiane, the capital city, and few provincial towns such as Luang Prabang and Savannakett.

Infrastructures needed an urgent push to help the economy start up and reduce the extreme poverty rates of the population. During the beginning of the 90’s, several donors including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) began different infrastructure development programs, including roads, water supply and electrification.