Using Emissions Intensity to Better Track Energy Transitions

Current metrics fail to adequately capture the temporal and spatial complexity of energy transitions in a sufficiently meaningful way and this limits their usefulness to inform effective climate and energy policy and management. In this paper we propose a cumulative integral of CO₂ emissions intensity for electricity and heat use as a metric to monitor energy transition progress. We demonstrate its application using International Energy Agency data for each of the G20-member countries. Findings show that whilst most countries are far from the energy transition positions required to effectively mitigate climate change, there are some examples of countries that have made an effective transition that provide useful insights into how energy transitions might progress more extensively.