2.6 Summary points - InterAcademy Council

The energy intensity of the world’s industrialized and developing economies—in terms of total energy consumed per unit of economic output—has been declining steadily over the last several decades as technology has improved and as a greater share of wealth is derived from less energy-intensive activities. Taken together, however, these intensity declines have not been sufficient to offset population increases and economic growth; overall energy consumption has steadily increased—in nearly all nations and for the world as a whole. Moreover, despite evidence that the technical potential for further energy-intensity reductions is enormous, there is evidence that country-level intensities are converging over time and may not, absent further policy intervention, continue to decline at the same rate as in recent decades. Some experts warn that rising material standards of living could, at some point and in some cases, begin to reverse past declines with potentially sobering implications for the prospect of achieving long-term, global sustainability goals.

Given the significant technical potential that exists to achieve further, cost-effective intensity reductions and given the critical importance of relieving current and projected stresses on the world’s energy systems, concerted policy action to maximize the contribution of demand-side options along with supply-side solutions is justified.

Governments should aggressively pursue cost-effective opportunities to improve energy efficiency and reduce energy intensity throughout their economies.

Facilitating technology transfer from industrialized to developing countries is particularly important.

Applied social science combined with explicit policy experimentation could plausibly deliver dramatic improvement in our understanding of (a) the determinants of energy demand, (b) the effectiveness of policies designed to facilitate the adoption of energy efficient technologies, and (c) the role of efficiency improvements in moderating demand.

Barriers to the adoption of potentially cost-effective energy technologies often arise from the difficulty of effectively quantifying and aggregating myriad small opportunities for improvement and, particularly in buildings, on the need for performance monitoring, intelligent management, and integration of diverse systems.

While a R&D push must be balanced with market pull, there should be an accelerated focus on the development of energy-efficient technologies in the following areas:

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