New Book Highlights Urgent Need for Progress on Energy Efficiency

With energy prices and greenhouse gas emissions ballooning at the same time as energy demand from China, India and Brazil is surging, the world has a major stake in successful energy reduction efforts in these big developing nations, according to a new World Bank book released today.

The book, Financing Energy Efficiency: Lessons from Brazil, China, India, and Beyond, says that without significant gains from energy efficiency efforts, China, India and Brazil will more than double their energy use and greenhouse gas emissions within a single generation.

China, India, and Brazil are three of the world’s top 10 energy consumers. Together these countries are home to 40 percent of the world’s population and account for well over half of all energy demand by developing countries.  By 2030, they’ll be responsible for 42 percent of growth in energy demand worldwide.

“We dissected the energy efficiency terrain through this study to find out why it’s so hard to get the right incentives in place so that more investment can happen,” said Bob Taylor – a key author and World Bank energy economist. “What we found is enormous untapped potential – especially in Brazil, China and India – but plenty of good solutions that can work as long as the financing and investment environment is in place and there’s plenty of commitment from policy makers.”

Energy Efficiency is critical in those three countries “for reasons of energy supply security, economic competitiveness, improvement in livelihoods, and environmental sustainability,” according to the book.

In these big three countries, there is a gradual improvement.

“We see progress being made but when you think about the sort of energy demand of even one of these countries in the next decade, the need for action and must faster progress is very clear,” said Taylor.

The book is available for a free download here.

For a hard copy, please order through the World Bank’s Infoshop.