IEA: Energy revolution 'insufficient' so far; efficiency is key
Electric cars, wind and solar energy and even next-generation biofuels might all help to build a more energy-secure future, but the areas we should be focusing our efforts on today more than anywhere else are much simpler: energy efficiency and energy savings.
That’s the conclusion of International Energy Agency (IEA) ministers from 37 countries who met this week in Paris to discuss “Our Energy Future: Secure, Sustainable and Together.” The last ministerial meeting was held in 2009.
“While participants were encouraged by promising signs that we are experiencing the early stages of an energy revolution based on widespread deployment of low-carbon technologies, current developments alone are insufficient to achieve emissions and energy security goals,” stated chairman Martin Ferguson, who is Australia’s Minister for Resources and Energy, at the end of the meeting. “In the near term, energy efficiency and energy savings remain the single most important means of seeking to meet climate and energy security goals in a cost-effective manner.”
In 2008, the IEA issued a list of 25 energy efficiency policy recommendations, including:
- Setting national energy efficiency strategies and goals;
- Establishing efficiency codes for new buildings;
- Promoting passive energy houses and zero energy buildings;
- Requiring mandatory energy performance standards or labels for electronic equipment and appliances;
- Phasing out inefficient incandescent light bulbs;
- Promoting “eco-driving” habits; and
- Creating policies to promote energy efficiency at small- and medium-sized businesses.
“Since our meeting in October 2009, we have witnessed events such as the Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico, events in parts of the Middle East and North Africa as well as the Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan,” Ferguson concluded. “Coupled with growing economic uncertainty and rising CO2, they remind us that threats to energy security, the global economy and the environment can come in many forms and unexpectedly. In today’s highly interconnected world, no one country can safeguard its energy security alone.”
