The commitment was made in a joint statement by representatives from 24 countries, presented at the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Global Conference on Energy Efficiency held in Sønderborg, Denmark, on 7-9 June.

“Energy efficiency and demand side action have a particularly important role to play now as global energy prices are high and volatile, hurting households, industries and entire economies,” the joint statement said.

“Energy efficiency offers immediate opportunities to reduce energy costs and reduce reliance on imported fuels.”

The governments said they intended “to continue to seek opportunities for exchange and collaboration towards better policy making and implementation of energy efficiency actions.”

Unpacking the value of energy efficiency

Discussions at the event were guided by the latest analysis from the IEA included presented in a report, The value of urgent action on energy efficiency.

According to the report, “doubling the current global rate of energy intensity improvement to 4% a year has the potential to avoid 95 exajoules a year of final energy consumption by the end of this decade compared with a pathway based on today’s policy settings”. This is equivalent to the current annual energy use of China, according to the IEA.

Doubling the current rate of energy intensity improvement from 2% to just over to 4% per year over the next decade could help avoid an extra 5 Gt of emissions per year by 2030 compared with a scenario with no extra major push by policy makers. This provides around one third of all emission reductions seen in the NZE Scenario. Image credit: IEA

The report emphasised that extra efforts to boost energy efficiency would ultimately reduce global spending on energy and create up to 10 million additional jobs in the fields of building retrofitting, manufacturing and transport.

The Global Conference was co-hosted by Denmark’s Minister of Climate, Energy and Utilities Dan Jørgensen, who said: “This is a global recognition of energy efficiency and its importance for our climate as well as our push for energy independence. If we work together, share our knowledge and showcase our different technologies, as we have shown ours here in Denmark, we can increase our global efforts for energy efficiency.”