International Energy Agency Countries Research Articles

Assessing key indicators of efficient green energy production for IEA members.

Environmental pollution, increased energy consumption, and growing demand for the energy sector have been widely discussed. Due to policymakers and different organizations impacting a lot of new regulations, tools have been implemented to use clean energy that has zero impact on the environment. The International Energy Agency (IEA) supports energy efficiency and evaluation by developing tracking indicators and analyzing energy consumption data. The paper identifies critical indicators for efficient green energy production and ranks the IEA member countries using the CRITIC-TOPSIS method. Results showed that CO2 emissions and monitoring energy consumption are the most significant indicators while assessing the countries' performance regarding green energy production. The results indicated Sweden as the best-performing country regarding green energy production and reaching energy efficiency between 1990 and 2020. While Turkey and the USA ranked last, resulting in significantly increased CO2 emissions within the time range that need more efforts and policy implications to reach similar energy efficiency levels as other IEA countries.

Energy R&D trends and sustainable energy strategies in IEA countries: efficiency, dependency, and environmental dynamics.

Understanding the factors affecting R&D trends in the energy sector has a key role in overcoming environmental concerns such as combating climate change, as well as other economic and political problems related to energy. Based on such concerns, this study aims to analyze fundamental factors that determine the energy R&D trends of 29 International Energy Agency (IEA) countries. The data set, consisting of annual indicators for the period 1990-2015, is analyzed with the Driscoll-Kraay panel data estimator. Empirical findings for overall sample show that efficiency, import dependency, and the share of renewable energy use are positively related with R&D expenditure in energy sector. CO2 intensity is found to be statistically insignificant. When countries are grouped considering their energy composition structures, the dynamics of energy R&D expenditures differ between groups. In overall evaluation, our findings illustrate efficiency and dependency to have greater priority compared to environmental dynamics on energy R&D expenditures for IEA countries during the period.

Dynamics among economic growth, urbanization, and environmental sustainability in IEA countries: the role of industry value-added.

As an indicator of environmental degradation, the ecological footprint has seen a terrific focus in the literature. We explore the dynamics among economic growth, urbanization, and environmental sustainability in the presence of population growth and industry value-added in the thirty International Energy Agency (IEA) member countries. We apply advanced econometric modeling for empirical analysis over the period 1992 to 2016. This study's short-run results suggest that capital formation and biocapacity increase ecological footprint in the short run. The findings of long-run estimates demonstrate that industrial value-added and capital formation improve environmental sustainability. However, economic growth, urbanization, biocapacity, and population growth deteriorate environmental sustainability in the long run. Policymakers in the IEA countries are encouraged to establish policies that promote a sustained lifestyle, ecological awareness, clean technological innovations, efficient production and consumption measures, and enlarge cities to limit the adverse effects of urbanization on environmental sustainability. Finally, study limitations and future research directions are discussed.

The Impact of Socio-economic and Environmental Sustainability on CO2 Emissions: A Novel Framework for Thirty IEA Countries

The extent to which socio-economic factors other than income and household size are associated with household CO2 emissions and whether associations vary across emission domains remains contested in the literature. We explore the impact of socio-economic and environmental sustainability indicators on CO2 emissions in the presence of combustible renewables, and the economic growth of thirty International Energy Agency (IEA) member countries. We develop a comprehensive empirical analysis using panel data and apply advanced econometric techniques for the period from 1995 to 2018. The panel co-integration analysis indicates long-run relationships among the variables. In addition, augmented mean group analysis and common correlated effects mean group analyses explain that environmental sustainability reduces CO2 emissions in the short run. Findings of fully modified least square estimates and long-run dynamic least squares estimates confirm that socio-economic sustainability increases CO2 emissions and environmental sustainability decreases them. The results of Dumitrescu and Hurlin Granger causality analysis reveal that combustible renewables, environmental sustainability, and economic growth bidirectionally Granger cause CO2 emissions, but socio-economic sustainability unidirectional Granger causes environmental quality. Policymakers in the IEA economies are encouraged to establish policies that promote a sustained lifestyle, ecological awareness, clean technological innovations, limit CO2 emissions, ecological trade-offs, and CO2 emissions ceilings to avoid rebound effects and limit environmental degradation. The study’s limitations are discussed, and useful directions for future research in the area are proposed.

The dynamic links among energy transitions, energy consumption, and sustainable economic growth: A novel framework for IEA countries

The role of renewable energy in protecting the environment is well established. This study explores the dynamic links among energy transitions, energy consumption, and sustainable economic growth in thirty-eight International Energy Agency (IEA) countries. We apply advanced econometric methodologies for empirical analysis from 1995 to 2015 and find long-run relationships among the variables. However, the effect of energy transitions on economic growth is significant only in the long run, and economic sustainability influences economic growth in both the short run and the long run. Moreover, the energy transition is negatively associated with host countries’ economic growth, while economic sustainability, renewable energy consumption, non-renewable energy consumption, labor, and capital are positively related to that growth. Policymakers in the IEA countries are encouraged to settle carbon costs and taxation, provide continuous support to research and development, commercialize low–CO2–emission technologies, reduce subsidies on non-renewable energy, offer cooperative programs for technology transfers, and generate a green trade policy to procure sustainable development. Study limitations and directions for future research in the area are presented.

The dynamic links among energy consumption, tourism growth, and the ecological footprint: the role of environmental quality in 38 IEA countries.

We examine the impact of energy consumption and tourism growth on the ecological footprints and economic growth of 38 International Energy Agency (IEA) countries, as moderated by labor and capital, over the 1995–2018 period. We develop a comprehensive empirical analysis that applies second-generation unit root and cross-section dependence analysis. The co-integration analysis indicates long-run relationships among the variables, while the fully modified least square (FMOLS) approach specifies that energy consumption promotes economic growth and degrades environmental quality in the long run, and tourism growth improves environmental quality and stimulates economic growth in the long run. In addition, the result of a pairwise Granger causality test reveals bidirectional causality between energy consumption and economic growth and unidirectional causality from the ecological footprint to energy consumption. Policy implications for theory and practice and directions for future research in the area are presented.

Trends in investments in global energy research, development, and demonstration

AbstractRecent national trends in investments in global energy research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) are inconsistent around the world. Public RD&D investments in energy are the metric most commonly used in international comparative assessments of energy‐technology innovation, and the metric employed in this article. Overall, the data indicate that International Energy Agency (IEA) member country government investments have been volatile: they peaked in the late 1970s, declined during the subsequent two decades, bottomed out in 1997, and then began to gradually grow again during the 2000s. The allocation of funding for different energy‐technology areas also varies hugely across different countries, but investments in fossil fuel and nuclear technologies continue to dominate spending. We have very poor data for private investments, but it is very likely that they have decreased as a result of the recent recession. Despite their increasing significance in the world's energy sector, little is known about public or private energy innovation investments in the rapidly developing countries. None of the six ‘BRIMCS’ countries reviewed here are members of the IEA, which is one of the few agencies that collects international statistical data on energy RD&D budgets. Like energy RD&D patterns in the United States and other IEA countries, BRIMCS country energy RD&D appears to take place predominantly in fossil fuel and nuclear technologies. WIREs Clim Change 2011 2 373–396 DOI: 10.1002/wcc.112This article is categorized under: The Carbon Economy and Climate Mitigation > Policies, Instruments, Lifestyles, Behavior

Final energy use in IEA countries: The role of energy efficiency

Improved energy efficiency is a key policy goal of all International Energy Agency (IEA) member countries, but tracking energy efficiency gains is not straightforward. As part of its contribution to the G8 Gleneagles Plan of Action, the IEA has been developing in-depth indicators—tools that provide data and analysis of energy use and efficiency trends. This paper gives an overview of the IEA indicator methodology and presents examples of how disaggregated indicators can be used to identify the factors that drive and restrain energy demand at the end-use level. A decomposition approach is also used to separate efficiency effects from the impacts of structure and activity. The results clearly show the important role that energy efficiency has played in shaping trends in final energy use in IEA countries for more than 30 years. However, the analysis also reveals that recent gains in energy efficiency have been much lower than in earlier decades. Accelerating energy efficiency improvements is therefore a crucial challenge for IEA governments and indicators have an important role to play in helping to develop and evaluate the policies that will be required.

The G8 on Energy: Too Little

![Figure][1] Energy security was a key issue at the St. Petersburg Summit of G8 leaders last month. Their joint communique[*][2] included many important commitments, but it omitted one crucial pledge: a significant increase in their governments' investments in R&D for energy technologies. The omission of energy R&D by the G8 reflects a worrisome lack of determination to accelerate the development of new energy technologies. The urgent challenge is to meet global demand [scheduled to rise by more than 50% in the next 25 years, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA)] while reducing the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on climate change. The St. Petersburg communique provides a list of future actions focused on private-sector energy funding, but neglects to emphasize the importance of public-sector R&D funding for technologies that are too far from market. It is perhaps not surprising that the communique had little to say on government R&D expenditure. A paper published last October concluded that public-sector R&D investment in energy in most industrialized countries has fallen sharply in real terms, from peak levels in the early 1980s, with some stabilization in the 1990s.[†][3] That analysis demonstrated that the 11 IEA countries accounting for most of the world's energy R&D had all decreased expenditures as a proportion of gross domestic product between 1975 and 2003. Investments in major energy R&D program areas dropped by 53% between 1990 and 2003. Fossil fuels and nuclear power accounted for more than 90% of the aggregate decline, but there was also an overall drop of 5% for R&D on renewable technologies. Analyses of these R&D budgets don't tell the whole story, but they do demonstrate that the governments of industrial countries are not facing up to the huge energy challenges that lie ahead. That is disquieting because the IEA is predicting that by 2030, based on current national policies, 80% of the world's primary energy demand will be met by fossil fuels. Meanwhile, nuclear, hydro, biomass, and waste will provide 17%, and other renewables, such as geothermal, solar, and wind energy, will only account for less than 2%. ![Figure][1] CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES As a result, the IEA projects that annual energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide will be 52% higher in 2030 than in 2003. Unless there is a radical change, the world will continue to become more reliant on fossil fuels beyond 2030. Without unfeasibly dramatic breakthroughs in carbon sequestration and energy efficiency, this will lead to proportionate increases in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. To deal with rising energy demands and rising greenhouse gas emissions, more needs to be done to develop new energy technologies that are currently far from market. Governments must play a lead role in stimulating this process by investing more in R&D. One benchmark is set by nuclear fusion, where current publicly funded research runs at around $1.5 billion per year. But fusion is only one of the technologies that are not yet market-ready. Proportionate support of all other options surely would be a prudent investment in a world where the cost of worldwide energy consumption is measured in trillions of dollars. These R&D expenditures could be funded through carbon taxes or similar economic instruments, levied initially on the countries with the largest emissions. Such a proposal may seem ambitious, but some commentators have argued that the energy challenge demands a high-profile response analogous to the Manhattan or Apollo project, but on a global, rather than national, scale. An initiative of this type by world leaders would, as happened after the initiation of the Apollo project in the United States, stimulate education and enrollments in science and technology. Will G8 leaders have the vision to announce such an initiative at next year's summit? [1]: pending:yes [2]: #fn-1 [3]: #fn-2

Energy decomposition analysis: IEA model versus other methods

In energy decomposition analysis, the International Energy Agency (IEA) model, which is based on the Laspeyres index method, is included in a recent international collaborative initiative on energy indicators for sustainable development for possible adoption [IAEA, 2005. Energy Indicators for Sustainable Development: Guidelines and Methodology. International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna (www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1222_web.pdf)]. From an empirical analysis using the data of the United States, we found that the residual term given by the IEA model could be significant and that the estimates of the impacts of structure and intensity changes given by the model could be quite different from those given by other decomposition methods. The residual term tends to be large when changes in structure and/or energy intensity variables are significant. Since changes in these variables over time are generally larger in the developing countries than in the IEA countries, there is the question about whether the IEA model is an appropriate decomposition method for the developing countries.

PV trends report available from IEA

The Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has recently published its Task 1 report, Trends in photovoltaic applications. Survey report of selected IEA countries between 1992 and 2002, now available from the IEA-PVPS website. Visit www.re-focus.net for the latest renewable energy industry news

International Comparisons of Sectoral Carbon Dioxide Emissions Using a Cross-Country Decomposition Technique

Discerning which sources contribute most to differences in per capita carbon emissions and why presents a daunting task for analysts, since several underlying factors affect emissions from hundreds of end-uses. This paper provides details of an international comparison methodology and carries out the comparison on a number of International Energy Agency (IEA) member countries. These calculations show where differences in the components of emissions lead to large gaps among countries. The data, from national sources, are the most extensive and disaggregated ever compiled for this kind of international analysis. Overall, activity differences account for the largest part of the gap in per capita emissions among IEA countries. If we normalize emissions to GDP, then transport activity levels, energy intensities, and utility carbon intensity share about equally in explaining the differences in carbon/GDP ratios among countries. Most of the structural variations arise in the freight, services, and household sectors—sectors less sensitive to international competition than manufacturing.