We meet today to accelerate global progress on energy efficiency and to reaffirm that energy efficiency is a top priority across all policy areas.
We reaffirm the important role that energy efficiency plays in enhancing energy security, competitiveness, affordability, and of course in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Energy efficiency is a key element of clean and sustainable energy transitions. We also reaffirm the need to strengthen energy efficiency action through implementation of effective policy.
The IEA's annual Global Energy Efficiency Conference has become the place where ministers and senior officials, CEOs and thought leaders gather to discuss the global status of energy efficiency and how the public and private sectors, including financial institutions, play their part in driving more progress more rapidly.
After the historic agreement at COP28, resulting in the global goal to double energy efficiency progress by 2030, the outcomes of the IEA's 8th and 9th Global Energy Efficiency Conferences held in Versailles, France in 2023 and in Nairobi, Kenya in May 2024, and the outcomes of COP29 in Azerbaijan in November 2024, now is the time to deliver greater impact, through stronger collective and national actions, including measures targeted at influencing and responding to consumer preferences, such as sufficiency measures, and technological improvements across all sectors.
It is particularly fitting that the 10th Annual Conference takes place in Brussels, co-hosted by the European Commission, given the European Union's leadership in energy efficiency and the global clean energy transition.
In line with the Global Energy Transition Forum - a high-level initiative announced earlier this year to maintain political momentum on key COP28 outcomes and to provide a platform for strategic cooperation among countries and stakeholders - today's conference highlights opportunities and actions for tangible progress on energy efficiency across multiple sectors and countries.
We will renew our efforts to promote energy efficiency to ensure affordable and secure energy services for our citizens, enhance competitiveness of our businesses, and safeguard the energy security of our nations.
We note the new IEA analysis launched at this Conference, which underlines the benefits of energy efficiency for industrial competitiveness, social inclusion, and the importance of the creation of high quality, long term, local jobs.
We will place people at the centre of our clean energy transitions, and focus on energy efficiency policies that are fair, benefit everyone and leave no one behind.
We will harness innovation and deploy digital technologies to maximise the benefits of energy efficiency - putting digitalisation at the heart of our modern energy systems, and in particular our industrial facilities, buildings and electricity systems. Following on from the IEA's recent historic Global Summit on the Future of Energy Security in London, we note the importance of holistic approaches to energy security and recognise the importance of energy efficiency and demand side measures in ensuring this.
We will work together with the private and finance sectors to develop the necessary framework to facilitate and enhance investments in energy efficiency, putting policies in place and resourcing them to ensure they achieve their goals, building as much as possible on existing initiatives where relevant. Actions to support the increased availability of private financing for energy efficiency will be essential.
We will make use of the new edition of the IEA's Energy Efficiency Policy Toolkit to guide us, adapted to national circumstances.
We also note that this year's conference emphasised dialogue between governments and industry, and among ministers and CEOs. We recognise the importance of such dialogue and ask the IEA to continue facilitating this exchange throughout the year leading to the 2026 edition of the conference.
We also ask the IEA to continue tracking global progress, including through its Energy Efficiency Progress Tracker, and supporting governments in designing and implementing best practice policies across all sectors, looking firstly to the global commitment made for 2030 and beyond. Harmonised and transparent measurement methods can help to support better policy design, compare investment impacts, and ensure resources to deliver the greatest benefits for people, the economy and the climate.
We will continue to see this annual conference and its outcomes as the key global platform for exchange among ministers and key stakeholders on increasing the ambition of our energy efficiency actions. We thank all participants and look forward to meeting again at the IEA's 11th Annual Global Conference in 2026.
Our commitment to the importance of strong and early action on energy efficiency.
We identify certain actions regarding affordability, better quality of life, and competitiveness that can deliver strong progress towards our overall goals while bringing the maximum benefits to all people as quickly as possible, specifically:
- Affordability - Use energy efficiency to help all people afford access to the benefits of energy. We agree to work collectively towards boosting the uptake of energy efficient appliances. Actions that countries may choose to prioritise include doubling the average efficiency of new air conditioners being sold by 2030, and extending minimum energy performance standards or equivalent measures to other major appliances as needed. Countries may also consider supporting energy-poor and vulnerable households through financial incentives, technical assistance and guidance on the proper use of equipment to maximise the energy savings.
- Better quality of life - Use energy efficiency to enhance people's quality of life, comfort and health. We agree to work collectively towards improving the energy efficiency of all buildings. Actions that countries may choose to prioritise include doubling the building retrofit rate by 2030 and extending the coverage of building energy codes.
- Competitiveness - Use energy efficiency to improve profitability and to protect and grow jobs. We agree to work collectively towards improving energy efficiency in industry. Actions that countries may choose to prioritise include doubling the rate of energy intensity progress of the industrial sector, including SMEs and light industry, while also promoting energy management systems, reuse and recycling, digitalisation and energy efficiency across supply chains. We call for actions to improve the energy efficiency in data centres and the uptake of efficient zero- and low-emission vehicles.
Statement issued on behalf of the following participants at the IEA's 10th Annual Global Conference on Energy Efficiency:
African Union
European Union
Armenia
Australia
Austria
Brazil
Canada
Chile
Costa Rica
Cyprus
Czechia
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Hungary
Iraq
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Kenya
Korea
Kuwait
Lesotho
Luxembourg
Malawi
Malta
Mexico
Moldova
Nigeria
Norway
Panama
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Senegal
Slovak Republic
Spain
Switzerland
The Netherlands
Türkiye
United Kingdom
Uruguay
