When I say “energy efficiency”, what comes to mind? I’m sure that you aren’t thinking about the most cost-effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions! Despite the lack of attention it receives from major environmental organizations, energy efficiency is by far the most promising approach to climate mitigation as shown by a new report from a business consulting firm and by the upsurge in student activism aimed at reducing their communities’ energy bills.
Last month, the McKinsey consulting firm released a report highlighting the immense potential for energy efficiency to quickly and cost-effectively reduce our carbon footprint. In it they highlighted that energy efficiency alone could easily reduce our energy use 23% by 2020. These are targeted investments that pay for themselves (referred to as NPV-Positive in the report) and provide an immense gain to our economy once you add in (and these cost saving-factors are not included in the report) the side benefits associate with job creation, improved air quality and health of residents, increased productivity, and, of course, weakening the climate crisis. Check out this graph summarizing their findings. The width of the columns indicates how many Gigatons of CO2 could be saved a year by implementing the measure and their vertical height indicated the incremental cost per ton of CO2 saved (from a previousMcKinsey report). You will see that most energy efficiency investments will have a strong payback, whereas other forms of energy improvements are somewhat costly (check out how expensive Coal plants with Carbon Capture and Sequestration, the coal industry’s ’solution’ to the climate crisis, are).
These are not abstract and hard to reach improvements, they are happening every day, mostly in buildings and institution with the available capital and know-how to tap into this incredible resource. Fortunately, there are many young people out there working hard to bridge the gap between these money, energy, and air quality saving measures and everyday people who don’t traditionally have access to them.