Sir,
We know that to curb climate change we will have to cut quickly global greenhouse gas emissions. According to all the serious climate scenarios which I have seen, energy efficiency technology offers the biggest potential reductions in CO2, even more than renewable energy.
The Swedish power company Vattenfall, for example, has reported on that technologies could cut CO2 emissions at a cost below €40 per ton. They identified potential reductions of 27 Gton (or billion tons) by 2030, including seven Gton at zero or negative cost. This was mainly thanks to greater energy efficiency. The International Energy Agency last year identified ways to cut CO2 emissions to 14 Gton in 2050, down from 62 Gton under the "business as usual" forecast. Some 39% of this potential reduction reflected various forms of energy efficiency, both in production and in the end-use.
Given such potential, it is strange that energy efficiency receives so little attention. One reason might be the terminology. The phrase "energy conservation" implies a return to poverty or a threat that today’s poor people will be locked into poverty forever. "Energy efficiency" sounds a little bureaucratic or even obscure. I think “energy productivity” is a better term because the whole point of the exercise is to increase the value we get from each unit of energy consumed. It is analogous to increasing labour productivity which raises output per person. Better energy productivity sounds smarter – and it is!
At the moment, buildings account for 40% of EU energy consumption and offer the greatest potential for increased energy productivity. They also provide significant "green" employment opportunities too. In Germany, 140,000 jobs were created over five years for energy renovation of buildings. The ETUC, the umbrella organization for European trade unions, estimated that between 274,000 and 856,000 new EU jobs could be created in this sector, mostly in improving energy productivity, plus another 500,000 in the production of energy efficient technologies.
It is already clear that market mechanisms alone, including pricing of CO2, are not enough to make these investments happen. We need new laws and efficiency standards too. It is therefore outrageous that several EU member states are resisting proposals to introduce efficiency norms in Europe. Vehicles’ CO2 emissions are one obvious area where new legal limits are vital, but unfortunately the legislation was diluted to a meaningless ambition level. Less well known, but just as important, are proposals on standby power consumption for electronic goods plus efficiency norms for other products, including boilers and water heaters.
Political resistance to such legislation makes absolutely no sense at a time when we hear the same EU governments complaining that climate targets are too challenging. If the EU adopted the proposals on energy efficiency, it would not only be much easier for member states to meet their goals for greenhouse gas emissions, it would also help them to achieve their renewable energy targets as well. This is because of one simple but seldom mentioned fact: if total energy consumption is reduced, then the proportion provided by a given amount of renewable energy becomes larger. We rightly talk a lot about increasing our supplies of renewable energy, but ignore the immense contribution that energy productivity can make.