Reducing Energy Consumption, while Protecting the Environment - Energy and Climate: How to Achieve a Successful Energy Transition - page 50

Presently, the risks of climate change represent a strong supplementary
reason for reinforcing energy conservation.
The actions which are required concern both consumption modes and
the technologies to be implemented. They need to be set up at three levels:
- Avoiding the waste of energy.
- Adopting new organisation and consumption modes that are less
energy intensive.
- Investing in energy conservation technologies.
Investments in the area of energy conservation are also an excellent choice
in economic terms, as they represent protection against future increases in
the price of energy.
The evolution of the energy intensity
Energy consumption increases with the Gross Internal Product (GIP) 2
once a certain level has been reached. The energy intensity, defined as the
energy consumption related to the GIP, can be used as an indicator of the
efficiency in the use of energy for ensuring living standards in a country
and its evolution with time.
Large discrepancies are observed between the energy intensities of
different countries in the world. Thus, the energy intensity of the USA is
higher by 50% than the average energy intensity in the European Union.
Thedifferences result fromawhole set of factors suchas the latitude,which
determines the needs for residential heating, or distances, which influence
the need for transportation. They result also from different ways of life.
The diagram in Figure 5.1 shows the important progress that has
already been accomplished and that remains possible [37]. Thus the US
energy intensity has been divided by a factor close to 2 during the last
thirty years. The energy intensity of France has been reduced by 35%
between 1973 and 2001.
In developing countries, the energy intensity initially grows during the
first development phase and then decreases. Thus the energy intensity of
China has initially reached high levels and has sharply decreased later on.
The present level is slightly above 0.2 toe/1000 US $ GIP (0.23 toe/1000
2 Total value of the internal production of goods andmerchant services within a country during a
year.