Thursday 10 May 2018

Energy efficiency ‘should be a priority for governments and businesses’

Energy efficiency ‘should be a priority for governments and businesses’

Every country and business “is leaving money on the table” if they are not implementing energy efficiency measures as a priority.

That’s according to Rachel Kyte, CEO of Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for SE4All, who believes energy efficiency should be a central pillar to energy strategies.

Speaking at the SE4All Forum in Lisbon last week, she said: “If we don’t put energy efficiency first, let me tell you that every country and every company is leaving money on the table and you will leave people behind. It is the most sensible intervention for those countries wrestling with huge capital expenditure decisions in order to install new gigawatts of power into a grid that will get smarter, one hopes.

“If we don’t pursue the efficiency of energy and try to move the intensity needle quickly, we are running to stand still. And so all of those nubbly problems, all of that behavioural economics that we don’t understand, all of the reasons why this is not being adopted at scale and pursued as a total government approach have to be unearthed.”

More than 800 people across government, businesses and communities from 100 countries attended the event, aimed at addressing key challenges in ensuring “no one is left behind” in the low carbon energy transition.

The event also saw the launch of the first analysis of progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which revealed the world is not on track to meet the global energy targets for 2030.

Written by

Bruna Pinhoni

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