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BEIJING - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is likely to give priority to meeting energy saving targets at the annual session of the people's congress which opens next week, after the country failed to meet last year's goals.

China cut its energy per unit of gross domestic product, or energy intensity, by 1.23 percent last year, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday, reversing a rise in intensity in the first half but falling short of its 4 percent target.

The figure also leaves China, the world's second-largest energy user, far off an ambitious goal of a 20 percent reduction by 2010, a key figure highlighted by Wen at last year's session, along with a 10 percent cut in major pollutants.

"I understand meeting the targets is a key issue," Yang Fuqiang, Beijing head of the US-based Energy Foundation, told the Foreign Correspondents' Club.

Failure to reach the goals is a blow to top officials worried that demand for oil and resources and environmental degradation could compromise the economic growth on which the Communist Party has staked its legitimacy.

Many experts see the 20 percent target as overly ambitious as the world's fourth-largest economy struggles to cool growth that registered 10.7 percent last year, the fastest in a decade.

Yang said it would remain out of reach unless China could keep growth at 8-9 percent.

"If it is higher, there is no way to cut energy consumption," he said.

LOCAL COMPLIANCE

Beijing's success also depends on the compliance of local officials, who, used to being judged on economic performance alone, prioritise growth in their regions at the expense of environmental or energy saving achievements.

"Success or failure of the 20 percent cut target depends on local implementation," Yang said. "The central government has to put more effort into incentives and punishments."

But environmental concerns are beginning to be voiced by China's citizens.

One Internet poll conducted by the official Xinhua news agency and sina.com showed 90 percent cited the environment as an "urgent" issue that should be addressed at parliament.

More than 70 percent said local governments and China's environmental watchdog should be more responsible, and more than half of those polled said the government should intensify its crackdown on pollution.

"We must keep in check the ambitions of local governments to chase rapid GDP growth. Scientific development shouldn't be a slogan that is shouted, it should be a guiding point at heart," the poll quoted one respondent as saying.

Yang said government officials needed to spend more time in the regions and work with local governments on ways to achieve growth to ensure they have the resources and incentives to implement centrally set policies.

He also advocates structural changes including pricing reforms, a reduction in the number of small, coal-fired power plants and better coordination between the energy policy-setting National Development and Reform Commission and the State Environmental Protection Administration.

China has become the world's largest emitter of acid rain-causing sulphur dioxide and is on track to surpass the United States as the top emitter of carbon dioxide by 2009, factors helping move sustainable development up the government agenda.