简体中文
The International Energy Agency ( IEA) and others have found that Australia has a very poor record on investing in energy efficiency and trails competitors in rates of improvement, according to a new research released on Monday.
Australia's annual energy efficiency improvement of about 0.5 percent is below the IEA average of 1 percent per year for countries assessed, and well below that of many comparable economies such as the United States (0.9 percent) and Canada (1.4 percent).
This new research by the Climate Institute, which quantified the impact that energy efficiency can have on economic output based on analysis of over 30 years of data from 28 countries, found that on average a 1 percent improvement in energy efficiency boosted GDP per person by 0.1 percentage points.
"If Australia improved its energy efficiency by just an extra one percent each year it would generate an additional 8 billion AU dollars (7.23 billion U.S. dollars) in GDP by 2020 and 26 billion (23.51 billion U.S. dollars) by 2030," said John Connor, CEO of the Climate Institute.
"This is an important contribution to improving Australia's productivity, as well as cutting our energy bills and carbon pollution." he added.
The Climate Institute pointed out that there are opportunities for Australia to trim its energy use right across the economy in simple ways.
For example, major industrial sectors like manufacturing, resources extraction and processing, construction, and freight and air transport could cut their energy use by 11 percent, saving companies some 3 billion AU dollars (2.71 billion U.S. dollars) each year, according to recent research by ClimateWorks Australia.
