Aside from the stagnating global economic growth and geopolitical crises, erratic oil prices made 2014 a turbulent year for the global energy sector. Against such a backdrop, World Economic Forum has recently released the Energy Architecture Performance Index (EAPI), which aims to provide policymakers and leaders benchmark national energy situation and make informed decisions in view of changing global energy landscape.
The key takeaways from the index and its findings are discussed here. First, the emerging and developing economies continue to lag in improvement in energy intensity when compared with the developed world. With 0.8 being the highest score, these economies move around 0.39 compared 0.61 of the developed countries. And in many of the less developed economies, energy access still is the biggest hurdle in the path of a sustainable global energy system.
The global aim of less carbon-intensive energy systems is slowly gaining some pace. As per the report, over one-third of countries on the EAPI have a percentage of non-carbon sources in total primary energy supply lower than 10 percent.
Though through increased energy imports, another key highlight of the index study are the reforms needed for the emerging economies due to their rising consumption patterns. Structural reforms for future resilience when the global economic growth is slowing down are what are being proposed by the study. These reforms must be tailored to address each country’s own unique circumstances, and rational implementation is critical for the success of such reforms.
While Pakistan’s position on the index is not very encouraging, policy makers at home can bring home lessons drawn from reforms in India’s electricity sector, where the country faced challenges in implementation resulting from fragmented lines of authority, and failure to install a culture of performance in state electricity boards. Or from the power sector reforms being pushed through by the Nigerian government showing commitment to reforms under all circumstances.
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GLOBAL ENERGY ARCHITECTURE PERFORMANCE INDEX REPORT 2015
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EAPI Rank EAPI Score Economic Growth Environmental Energy Access
(1-125) (0.4-0.8) & Development Sustainability & Security
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Sri Lanka 68 0.58 0.58 0.56 0.58
India 95 0.51 0.5 0.42 0.61
Pakistan 111 0.47 0.44 0.44 0.52
Bangladesh 116 0.45 0.52 0.39 0.44
Nepal 117 0.45 0.4 0.62 0.33
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Source: World Economic Forum
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