Agency: Progress on energy efficiency must increase

Countries around the world need to double their progress on energy efficiency if they want to comply with global climate goals by the middle of the century, according to the International Energy Agency.

Widespread efficiency gains are key to cutting emissions, especially as global electricity demand is expected to grow, the agency said Wednesday.

For example, if the United States were to switch all its lighting to LED technology, that could save enough energy to power 3 million electric vehicles per year, the IEA said.

Global leaders have been meeting at the United Nations’ climate summit in Dubai, where the U.S. and the European Union are leading a push for nations to endorse tripling renewables capacity and doubling energy savings by 2030.

So far, efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions remain insufficient to limit global warming to the Paris Agreement target of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit versus pre-industrial levels.

To meet that goal, annual improvements in energy efficiency need to rise from 2% in 2022 to more than 4% on average between now and the end of the decade, the IEA said.

This year, global energy intensity improved by only 1.3%, in part because of a rebound in some energy-intensive sectors and booming demand for air conditioning.

Doubling energy efficiency improvements has the potential to create millions of new jobs in areas such as home retrofitting and heat pump installations, according to the IEA.

It also could slash global carbon dioxide emissions by more than 7 billion tons, equivalent to those currently produced by the entire transportation sector.

At the same time, energy efficiency measures already have become more widespread, and the need for improvement globally masks strong gains at the national level, the IEA said.

The EU, for example, is set to post a 5% improvement this year, after achieving 8% in 2022.

“The world’s climate ambitions hinge on our ability to make the global energy system much more efficient,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said.

Raquel Natalicchio/Staff file photo Houston’s 2023 Holiday Tree has 99,680 LED lights. An agency says that if the U.S. switched all lighting to LED technology, the energy saved would power 3 million electric vehicles per year.