EU doing well in global energy ranking
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Swiss nuclear plant. Switzerland comes out top at the World Economic Forum's annual energy ranking (Photo: Fomal Haut)
By Peter Teffer
The European Union is dominating the World Economic Forum's annual Global Energy Architecture Performance Index, published on Wednesday (22 March).
This year, fourteen of the twenty best-scoring countries are members of the European Union – two more than in 2016.
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The index gives points for eighteen different energy-related categories, on issues such as: the levels of diversity and quality in the energy supply, or the volume of CO2 emissions.
The ranking is topped by non-EU members Switzerland (1) and Norway (2). The top-7 are all European countries: Sweden (3), Denmark (4), France (5), Austria (6), and Spain (7).
The list's methodology included eighteen indicators that quantified the countries' contributions to economic growth and development, environmental sustainability, and energy access and security.
EU countries, such as: Portugal (11), Finland (12), Slovenia (13), United Kingdom (15), Ireland (16), Latvia (17), Croatia (18), Germany (19), and Slovakia (20), also performed well.
The report stated that Europe's “strong performance is underpinned by advantages gained through a long history of coordination between European nations, which is a model for regional cooperation”.
The report was published by the Swiss-based foundation, the World Economic Forum, best-known for its annual meeting in Davos.
The authors recognised that the index “cannot fully reflect the complexity of energy systems or of managing energy transitions”, but could work as “a basis for comparison across nations”.
For the third year in a row, Switzerland received top marks and was put in first-place because it had “a diverse supply mix, low-energy intensity and low carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from electricity production”.
Norway was praised for “energy access and security”, while Sweden scored well on environmental sustainability.
“From being heavily reliant on oil in the 1970s to achieving one of the highest shares of renewables across the EU, it has reached 50% of consumption from renewable energy before the 2020 deadline,” the report said about Sweden.
Most EU countries were in the 40 highest ranked countries, of 127, with only Estonia (56), Cyprus (67), and Malta (71) performing less well.
Several non-EU European countries outperformed those lower ranked EU member states - with Albania in 25th place, and Iceland in 26th.
