The multiple benefits of adopting more efficient energy demand practices in buildings, industry, agriculture and transport, now renovated as part of the solution to unprecedented challenges, are well known.
Energy efficiency can make a significant contribution to decarbonisation by reducing the use of fossil fuels, reducing contamination and consequently improving air quality. This effect alone has positive impacts on public health, making us more resilient to pathogenic activity. Energy efficiency is a very powerful tool in job creation, established on value chains based on local businesses; it also improves the performance of public (and private) budgets by reducing expenditure, allowing it to be allocated to other basic areas such as health, education, sport or culture. Energy efficiency is thus a key component in economic stimulus packages.
The technological solutions for the implementation of energy efficiency are also at our disposal in the energy services of lighting, heating, cooling, ventilation and motive power. All that remains is to apply them.
At the Copenhagen Centre for Energy Efficiency, we promote the implementation of these solutions in developing countries and emerging economies, helping national and sub-national governments to define strategies, identify and prepare investment projects to improve their global performance and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals. With the support of the Danish Government and in line with the United Nations Environment Programme, in Kenya we support the definition of its national energy conservation strategy, in Argentina we work with forty municipalities to replace street lighting and in India we provide technical support in the implementation of district cooling networks. These and many other experiences of spreading energy efficiency in the “Global South” can be found in a collection I edited with Prof. Suzana Tavares da Silva, published by Routledge under the title Energy Efficiency in Developing Countries – Policies and Programmes.
