A media report earlier this week said China had overtaken the US as the world's biggest energy consumer. The report was based on an interview with Fatih Birol, chief economist of International Energy Agency (IEA). Although a day later Chinese officials refuted the claim, the Western media were quick to shed crocodile tears over an "energy-hungry dragon".

As an expatriate whose experiences in China began in 1981 with oil exploration and continues as a researcher on the economy, the environment and energy, it is easy to be annoyed with the Western media's sensationalism.

The IEA is an anachronism of a previous world. For a start, solar, hydro and wind power are counted as energy consumption, and measured, like all polluting fossil fuels, in tons of oil equivalent (toe). Reporting all energy consumption in oil equivalent is a reflection of gas-guzzling thinking. Other methods - measuring energy in coal equivalents or joules, or weighting use of fuels by polluting effects - will give different results.