Higher ambition and faster action by governments to accelerate improvements in energy efficiency worldwide are both vital and achievable, according to 10 key recommendations published today by a group of national leaders, ministers, top business executives and prominent energy experts. The list of proposed actions will be a key part of discussions at a major IEA conference that takes place tomorrow.
With the support of the IEA, the members of the Global Commission for Urgent Action on Energy Efficiency have over the past year explored the most effective ways to achieve stronger global progress in energy efficiency, which brings major benefits such as lower energy bills, large numbers of new jobs and significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Their 10 recommendations highlight the best approaches to designing and implementing policies to unlock the huge advantages that energy efficiency offers to economies and societies around the world.
The Global Commission's work comes as many governments are increasingly focusing on plans to repair the social and economic damage caused by the Covid-19 crisis. The Commission's recommendations focus on this new reality and highlight the strong role that energy efficiency can play in bringing about a sustainable recovery.
"At this critical time, the importance of energy efficiency has not faded. If anything, the case is stronger and more urgent than ever before," said Prime Minister Leo Varadkar of Ireland, the Commission's Honorary Chair, in an introduction to the recommendations. "We need transformative change. Therefore, we have developed this set of 10 recommendations that identify policies that can be implemented quickly to boost activity on energy efficiency globally."
Established a year ago, the Global Commission is an independent body comprising 23 members from around the world spanning government, industry, research and civil society. Drawing on the IEA's analysis showing the worrying slowdown of global efficiency progress in recent years, the Global Commission was tasked with examining how to reverse this trend through new and stronger policy action by governments across key sectors of the economy.
The work of the Global Commission complements a major IEA report released last week that outlines a Sustainable Recovery Plan designed to enable governments to simultaneously boost their economies, create millions of jobs and put global greenhouse gas emissions into structural decline. Based on an analysis conducted in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund, the new IEA report shows that energy efficiency is an essential element in achieving these results.
"The IEA sees energy efficiency as a crucial clean energy resource," said Dr Fatih Birol, the IEA Executive Director. "It has enormous untapped potential to help put the world on a more secure and sustainable path if governments make it an integral part of their policies and programmes across key parts of the economy. This is why I invited the members of the Global Commission to come together to identify global best practices and make actionable recommendations to spur the faster progress that the world urgently needs. I thank all the Commission members for their extremely valuable contributions to this endeavour."
The Global Commission's recommendations will be discussed at the IEA's Fifth Annual Global Conference on Energy Efficiency, which will take place online on 23 June. The conference will hear from 15 ministers from around the world, with a focus on policy actions that can deliver the multiple benefits of energy efficiency as governments respond to the Covid-19 crisis. High-level speakers will bring a range of perspectives from governments, companies and international organisations.
The role of energy efficiency in economic stimulus plans and clean energy transitions will be an important part of discussions at the IEA Clean Energy Transitions Summit on 9 July. The Summit, which will take place online, will bring together dozens of ministers from countries representing over 80% of global energy demand as well as energy industry CEOs, big investors and other key leaders from the public and private sectors around the world.
