As the dust settles on APEC 2007, details are starting to emerge on the deals and agreements struck by the 21 nations in attendance. In particular, the energy intensity targets in the Sydney Declaration on climate change have come under scrutiny, with some experts suggesting they are actually worse than doing nothing.

In the “Action Agenda”, the Declaration:

Highlight(s) the importance of improving energy efficiency by working towards achieving an APEC-wide regional aspirational goal of a reduction in energy intensity of at least 25 per cent by 2030 (with 2005 as the base year).

But for people who understand the numbers, that’s a largely useless, if not damaging, target. As owner and director Energy Conservation Systems, a market leader in Australia for energy efficiency in commercial buildings, Peter Szental has been at the forefront of bringing energy efficient to commercial buildings for more than two decades. He was also a business delegate at APEC. In his view, the Sydney Declaration hasn’t gone far enough. 

“Unless an energy intensity target recommends absolute reductions, it’s going achieve very little,” Szental told Crikey. “Anything that lacks an absolute limit or constraint around the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere isn’t going make much difference at all.”

According to the International Energy Agency, Australia’s energy intensity per unit of GDP reduced by 13.3% over the ten years between 1992 and 2002. This was a decade over which government energy efficiency efforts were largely non-existent so this improvement was achieved with no dedicated effort largely due to the services sector of the economy expanding considerably faster than the energy intensive industrial and manufacturing sectors.

There’s the kicker. If this “no effort” trend was continued over the 25 years between 2005 and 2030 we’d achieve a 33.25% reduction in energy intensity. So a 25% reduction is more damaging than ignoring the issue altogether.

“It’s a worse than business-as-usual approach packaged up as an important piece of action. Most observers who don’t know much about the energy efficiency would think it sounds like a good idea. Twenty five per cent sounds like a lot. What’s not being reported in any of this is that you can cut energy use by 25% and do it at a profit,” says Peter Szental.

“Having a real energy efficiency target, such as in the EU, should involve reducing overall energy use by 1% per year, which will deliver a net economic benefit. That’s the more forward thinking or leading position on this issue.”