“Energy efficiency: the win-win solution to climate change?”

Advocates of green capitalism often believe that energy efficiency will be the answer (or at least one of the main answers) to solving climate change. As energy consumption is one of the main causes of greenhouse gas emissions, it is indeed paramount to decrease global energy use. Energy efficiency represents a perfect solution for many because it would preserve social and economic development of countries (growth-based development) while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “Energy efficiency” seems to be the buzzword for corporations, nations and global organisations that want to fix climate change. For instance, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) actively promotes energy efficiency investments for climate change mitigation and sustainable development and describes energy efficiency as “one of the priority fields in the energy economic and climate change policies of many countries globally” (1). Techno-optimists affirm that technological innovation alone can solve a large part of environmental problems (2). Thus, we could achieve material abundance globally through economic growth and solve environmental issues at the same time thanks to technological advancement.

Even though such an idea seems seductive, it seems illusory to me to believe that energy efficiency without sufficiency can represent a credible promise to solve climate change.

One main issue with energy sufficiency seems to be the effect of “rebound consumption”: when increased consumption cancels out energy savings because increase in efficiency can make demand goes up because of price reduction (3). This “rebound effect” was first introduced by William Stanley Jevons as the Jevons Paradox in 1865, in application to the coal sector. Jevons maintained that technological efficiency gains in the use of coal in engines (economical use of coal) increased the overall coal consumption instead of saving it (4). This phenomenon observed with coal works with other resources, even energy. Many countries have seen their energy consumption and carbon output increase despite huge investments in energy efficiency aiming to reduce greenhouse emissions (3). The United States, for instance, has doubled its energy efficiency since 1975 but has seen its energy consumption rise greatly (2). “Rebound effect” happens in capitalist societies because savings in energy are used to stimulate increase in goods and new capital formation, thus demanding greater resources and increasing ecological destruction (2). Dr Samuel Alexander, from the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, argues that rebound effects and the inherent structure of growth economics make absolute decoupling (a decline in the global ecological impact of total economic output) through efficiency gains highly unlikely to occur (5).

If it is unlikely for energy efficiency to enable the promised win-win situation (of continued growth-based development and reduction of greenhouse gases emissions), perhaps we should start thinking of coupling efficiency with material sufficiency and going towards a 'post-growth’ economy.