Germany is the global leader in energy efficiency while ageing power plants and inefficient ways of electricity generation and industrial practices put India at number 11 in the latest energy efficiency ranking of the world’s 16 largest economies.
The United States, having second highest per capita energy consumption in the world, comes at the 13th position — behind countries such as China, France, Japan, UK, Canada and Australia among others.
Besides the US, four other countries — South Korea, Russia, Brazil and Mexico — are below India in terms of indulging in inefficient ways of energy consumption.
Per capita energy consumption of all these countries is, however, much higher than India which, with less access to energy sources and lesser number of private vehicles, pollutes less as compared to other big economies.
These findings are part of the latest international scorecard, released by the US-based non-profit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) in July. The second edition of the report analyzed the world’s 16 largest economies (15 countries and rest of the EU) covering more than 81 per cent of the global GDP and about 71 per cent of the global electricity consumption.
The report assumes significance as it shows that the country that uses less energy to achieve the same or better results not only cuts its costs but also pollution. Certainly the rich nations like Canada, US, Australia, France, Japan and UK emit more greenhouse gases due to high energy consumption.
The latest ranking appears to give an elbow room to developing countries including India and Brazil during climate change negotiation where they may insist for their ‘right to grow’ agenda, highlighting how the rich nations like US and Canada continue to pollute more due to high fossil fuel consumption.
India is incidentally among the top nations in transportation energy efficiency as it has far lower number of passenger miles traveled per capita than any other major economy of the world.
“Even with no fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles, India ranks third in terms of passenger-vehicle fuel economy,” said the ACEEE report. It, however, pointed out how the country, due to its inefficient ways of electricity generation and distribution, absence of the use of many other energy efficient operational methods in industries, public and private buildings and inefficient freight system, scored badly in overall energy efficiency scorecard.
It said, “The operational efficiency of thermal power plants in India is the lowest any country analyzed, largely due to an aging power plant fleet.”
The report, at the same time, suggested that India would benefit from “establishing a mandatory national energy-saving goal and increasing its level of government and utility investment in energy efficiency”.
The issue of the big divide in energy consumption between developed and developing countries in the context of rich nations’ historical responsibility for climate change came up for discussion during the ministerial meeting of the BASIC — Brazil, South Africa, India and China — countries here on Thursday.
These four nations also discussed ways and means to have a common ground on crucial issues ahead of the December climate change talks in Lima, Peru. Environment ministers of these countries will meet on the concluding day of the BASIC summit on Friday.
