تجزیه و تحلیل فعل و انفعالات میان موانع ذخیره انرژی در چین

Since China became the second largest energy consumer and carbon dioxide emitter, the problem of energy consumption and environmental pollution has drawn the world's attention. Meanwhile, Chinese government has put high emphasis on the problem. One project of energy saving initiated by Chinese government has been put into practice. However, many difficulties need to be dealt with to meet the expected aim of social development. The objective of this article is to investigate the interactions among the major barriers which prevent the practice of energy saving in China. Obviously, a clear definition of relationships among the barriers to energy saving helps top leaders make relevant decisions to solve the problem of economic sustainability, energy security and environment pollution in the future. To date, studies specifying energy-saving barriers have often focused on analyzing these barriers separately. As a result, a holistic view in understanding the barriers to energy-saving project is lacking. Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) is utilized to summarize the critical barriers hindering the project of energy saving in China and to explain the interrelationships among them. Suggestions for energy-saving practice and future research are provided.

Today China is experiencing rapid development and the future society, with higher level of modernization and standard of living, will consume more energy. Since China has become the second largest energy consumer and carbon dioxide emitter (Lu and Ma, 2004), its issues of energy consumption and environmental pollution are catching the world's eyes. Meanwhile, Chinese government has put high emphasis on these issues. One project of energy saving initiated by the government has been putting into practice. In recent years, China has presented two remarkable development objectives. One objective is to build a well-off society in all round way, which was raised at the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2002. Another objective, put forward at the 10th National Congress of P.R. of China in 2006, is to reduce 20% of energy consumption at the end of the 11th Five-Year Plan. It is inevitable for China to make such decisions. From 2002 till now, the elasticity of energy consumption is between 1.0 and 1.57, which shows that the progress is more and more dependent on the quantity than the quality of the energy consumption. It was once considered that China abounds in energy resources. Thus, its economic development was based on high-resource consuming pattern. However, two challenges are confronting China and drawing more and more attentions in recent years. The first one is the conflict between economic sustainability and environmental pollution. The ever increasing fossil fuel prices and the fact that oil reserves are not sufficient for the expanding energy demands will prevent China from building the well-off society in all round way. The second challenge is that China will face an enormous pressure of greenhouse gas mitigation. China is a Party of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and all Parties have an obligation to mitigate climate change (Ni and Johansson, 2004). Additionally, In the light of global warming due to human enhancement of the greenhouse effect, there is a clearly growing concern about the sustainable development of the world. In order to realize sustainability, the Chinese government has no other choices but energy-saving practices. At the stage of rapid economic development, China is urged to increase energy efficiency, strengthen energy conservation, develop renewable energy and optimize energy structure as well. Nevertheless, the implementation of energy-saving program may be a great challenge for the top policymakers as it involves many operational aspects, including economy, politics, environment, technology, management, etc. That is to say, the practice of energy saving is not free from barriers. To move towards the path of sustainable energy, it is necessary to identify and analyze the barriers to energy saving in China. The barriers not only affect the operation of energy saving but also influence one another. Thus, it is very essential to understand the mutual relationships among the barriers. The identification of the barriers that are at the root of some barriers (called driving barriers) and those which are most influenced by the others (called driven barriers) would be helpful for the policymakers to implement the energy-saving programs. This can be a guide for taking appropriate action to tackle barriers in energy-saving project. An analysis of the barriers hindering energy saving and their interaction with the various aspects in integrative planning can be a valuable source of information for decision makers. To date, many studies identifying the barriers to energy saving in some countries (including China) and regions have been made. Fang and Zeng (2007) illustrated some barriers and challenges facing the energy management in China. Yang (2007) also analyzed some main barriers to energy saving in China. On the basis of the research conducted by Bioenergy Network of Excellence, McCormick and Ka berger (2007) identified the major barriers that hinder the application of energy and developed an innovative methodology to identify key barriers. Lidula et al. (2007) carried out a study on the barriers to clean and sustainable energy in the ASEAN member countries. Mayfield et al. (2007) provided a new framework to deal with the barriers to enhance the efficiency of biomass operation. Sharma et al. (1995) tried to examine the objectives of waste management in India. Furthermore, some barriers, through a series of studies, were identified by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) (Tonn and Peretz, 2007). Although China's issues of energy saving are specific due to its current situation, it would be helpful to use the relevant reference of other countries.

Today China is in a transition period starting from a high resource-consuming to another high-efficiency economic development pattern. So it would be of particular importance to improve energy efficiency for various regions within China in order to sustain its economic growth (Hu and Wang, 2006). Tremendous challenges are posed to the policymakers because there are many barriers hindering the energy-saving programs. Accordingly, some main barriers considered have been identified and the relationships among the barriers are analyzed by the ISM model. From the diagram (Fig. 3) it is observed that there are no barriers in two clusters. Firstly, no autonomous barrier occurs in the I cluster, which means that all barriers considered influence the energy-saving program. Secondly, no barrier is found in the III cluster, which means that all the 13 selected barriers are stable. Also, it is observed that these barriers, such as lack of awareness of energy saving, limited policy framework (LPF), lack of incentive support (LIS), lack of funding or financing difficulties (LFFD), lack of research personnel or trained manpower (LRTP), inadequate data and information (IDI) located in the IV cluster, are strong drivers and strongly act on the other barriers, which are lack of experience in technology and management, lack of public participation, reluctance to invest because of high investment risk, objections from the vested interests groups, inappropriate industrial framework, lack of strategic planning, lack of appropriate production technologies. From the ISM model, it is also observed that lack of awareness, LPF, LIS, which are at the bottom level of the hierarchy, which imply that these barriers have a higher driving power. So they should be treated as strategic issues in energy saving practices. Meanwhile, three barriers, namely LFFD, LRTP, IDI also have strong driving power and less dependent on the other barriers. Therefore, a higher priority should be placed on the barriers, which have a high driving power and thus possessing more capability to influence other barriers, which are shown at the root level of the ISM (Fig. 2). Top management should focus on developing strategies to create awareness and to make some strategic policies about the energy-saving practice so that the desired objectives could be met. A major contribution of this research consists of the development of relationships among some important barriers to energy saving through the ISM model. This research gives some valuable insights about the relative importance and the interactions among these barriers. Also, the conclusions from the ISM model can provide some important managerial implications, which can be used as reference by the leadership to deal with these barriers. Thus, the research can help the top management in deciding the priority so that it can take steps in combating these barriers. Finally, it should be mentioned that the relationships among the barriers to energy saving in China have been achieved in this research, but this model has not been statistically validated. Structural equation modeling, also referred to as the linear structural relationship approach, has the capability of testing the validity of such hypothetical models (Jharkharia and Shankar, 2005). The future research for us is to test and validate these results achieved using the relevant models.