A sky train is pictured in downtown Vancouver, Saturday, March 14, 2015. A unprecedented plebiscite will be asking Metro Vancouver residents if they will be willing to foot the bill for a mega public transportation overhaul.JONATHAN HAYWARD/The Canadian Press
Canada ranks 10th among the 23 largest energy consumers in the world when it comes to using that energy efficiently.
A study released on Wednesday by the non-profit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) put Canada in the middle ranks for energy efficiency, citing the country's strict appliance and building standards as areas of strength.
It noted, however, that Canada gets weak marks for industrial energy efficiency and for poor use of public transit and investment in rail transport.
Germany got the top marks for energy efficiency, which the ACEEE said is often the lowest-cost means of meeting new energy demands. Efficiency is still "massively underutilized globally," the organization said, despite its added benefits of cutting pollution and reducing greenhouse gasses.
The scorecard looked at 35 different metrics of energy efficiency in each country, including the intensity of energy use in buildings, industry and transportation. It also put considerable weight on government policy that is designed to improve efficiency, such as target setting and the implementation of standards for energy use in appliances or fuel economy in vehicles.
While Canada came 10th over all (behind the United States, which was tied with South Korea for eighth), it ranked much higher on the policy front – sixth among the 23 countries – than it did on actual performance, where it ranked 18th.
The study acknowledged that energy consumption and efficiency are affected by geography, climate and a country's size. For instance, Canada uses far more energy for heating than many other countries, and the long distances between cities forces higher energy use in transportation. Canada, not surprisingly, scores very poorly on vehicle miles travelled per capita, as do other large countries, such as Australia and the United States. But it also ranks badly in use of public transit and investment in rail systems.
Germany won its top position partly because it has a comprehensive strategy to become highly energy-efficient, and has set targets to reduce consumption to 50 per cent below the level of 2008 by 2050. It is particularly strong in keeping industrial use of energy under control, the ACEEE report said.
"We consider energy efficiency as the most important energy resource," Georg Maue, a senior adviser in the German Ministry of Economic Affairs, said in a conference call on Wednesday.
It is also the most cost-efficient way to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, Mr. Maue said. Germany has managed to "decouple" its economic growth from the level of energy demand since the 1990s, he added.
Italy and Japan tied for second place in the rankings, with France close behind them. Saudi Arabia came last of the 23 countries, although the ACEEE said data were hard to obtain there.
Over all, "countries need to invest more in measuring and disclosing energy-efficiency-related information," said Chetana Kallakuri, a research analyst at ACEEE who was one of the authors of the study.
The countries included in the study represent about 75 per cent of all the energy consumed around the globe, and together account for more than 80 per cent of the world's gross domestic product.
Top nations for energy efficiency
Rank/ Country/points (out of 100)
1. Germany 73.5
2.(tie) Italy 68.5
2. Japan 68.5
4. France 67.5
5. Britain 65
6. China 64
7. Spain 62
8.(tie) South Korea 61.5
8. United States 61.5
10. Canada 59
11. Netherlands 58
12. Poland 53.5
13. Taiwan 51
14. India 48.5
15. Turkey 46.5
16. Australia 41
17. Russia 38
18. Indonesia 37.5
19. Mexico 37
20. Thailand 36.5
21. South Africa 33
22. Brazil 32.5
23. Saudi Arabia 15.5
Source: ACEEE