A report released by the World Energy Council reveals that the annual improvement of energy efficiency has slowed from 1.6% between 2000-2008 to 1.3% between 2009-2014.
Despite good energy improvement efforts, with savings of 3.2 gigatonnes of primary energy and 7 GT of CO2 over the past 15 years, the World Ocean Council has revealed that progress is slow and needs to be accelerated in order to boost energy production and consumption saving efforts.
Christoph Frei, Secretary General, World Energy Council, commented: “While there has been some progress, there is still not enough being done to drive energy efficiency and to reduce global energy emissions as agreed at COP21 in 2015.
“We still need to develop new policies, strategies and business models to meet the challenge of securing tomorrow’s energy today. We will continue to engage global leaders to create the right policy signals, to scale up new business models, to drive innovation and global trade of best-in-class green goods and services. It’s about encouraging collaboration on regional integration projects that will deliver a sustainable future.”
François Moisan, Chair, World Energy Council Knowledge Network on Efficiency policies, and Director of Strategy and Research, ADEME (France) added: “The introduction of energy efficiency policies and measures has been growing fast around the world. The increasing number of countries with an energy efficiency law, ten more compared to the 2013 report, signifies a strengthening and consolidation of the institutional commitment to energy efficiency.”
A number of recommendations have been made by the World Energy Council, including the need for countries to set deadlines for a gradual energy pricing reform in order to allow energy prices to reflect the real cost of supply. Furthermore, there is a need for consumers to be better informed, to simplify messages on energy efficiency, and to ensure that new technologies are supported by policies. The World Energy Council also recommends that there needs to be a wide introduction of innovative financing tools to alleviate public budgets from the financial and fiscal incentives, while ongoing regulations should be regularly reviewed and strengthened if necessary.
The Council also states that monitoring achievements are necessary to ascertain the impact of energy efficiency policies, while the development of international or multi-national standards can help enhance international and regional cooperation and international energy mediums should be used to exchange experiences for policies benchmarking and identification of best practices.
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