Abstract:
Outlook on Energy Efficiency
Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, Professor and Co-Chair, International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management
Energy efficiency is on everybody’s mind and still grossly undervalued. Typically, politicians and technicians speak about efficiency gains of some ten or twenty percent. That’s not good enough. What we need to seriously address global warming is a fourfold or fivefold increase of energy productivity, meaning an increase by 300% or 400%. Technically, this is possible. Mobility, housing, food, lighting, and industrial goods and services can be provided with one fifth or even one tenth of the energy presently used. But such advances don’t make it to the market fast enough because energy is still much too cheap. If societies decide to increase energy prices in proportion with energy productivity gains, thus avoiding social hardship and capital destruction. The presentation in Stockholm will feature some striking examples of increase of energy productivity and will address the policy challenges to make them happen.