Spain occupies tenth place among the countries with the best performance in terms of renewable energy, a ranking headed by Chile, Brazil and China. In the following positions are Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany and the United States.
This is one of the conclusions drawn from the Renewable Energy Tracker report, a tool of the Renewable Energy Action Platform that evaluates countries’ progress towards 100% energy systems. clean. The document evaluates a total of 20 indicators to establish the ranking.
This initiative was presented before the 28th UN climate conference -COP28- begins on November 30 in Dubai (United Arab Emirates).
The tool recognizes differences between countries in terms of priorities, financial capabilities, population size and common but differentiated responsibilities in the development of renewable energy.
Additionally, it rewards countries that consistently perform better than others on most of the evaluated indicators, looking at deployment in the energy sector and across the economy, investments, co-benefits and so on. That is, the analysis does not focus solely on installed capacity.
The Tracker covers 60 countries representing 85% of the total population and around 90% of the total greenhouse gas emissions, energy use and GDP.
Countries are classified as ‘champions’, ‘pioneers’, ‘moderate’, ‘laggards’ or ‘slow starters’. Because it only looks at renewable energy, not climate action in general, the best-performing countries are not necessarily the climate leaders.
No country deserves an excellent grade and that is why it leaves the ‘champion’ category empty. The first three places are occupied by three emerging and developing economies: Chile, Brazil and China. In addition, eight other countries are also classified as ‘pioneers’, in this order until they complete eleventh place in the classification: Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the United States, Spain and Portugal.
It so happens that several emerging and developing countries obtain better scores than other rich nations from the perspective of equity, since Vietnam (13th), Colombia (14th), Jordan (15th), India (17th), Mexico ( 18th) and Malaysia (19th) sneak into the top 20.
On the contrary, some rich countries are ‘lagging behind’ or are ‘slow starters’ and are not living up to their capabilities and responsibilities, including five members of the G-20 that account for almost 9% of global greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse: Japan (32nd place), Canada (33rd), South Korea (46th), Saudi Arabia (47th) and Italy (48th). Switzerland (41st), Russia (42nd) and New Zealand (43rd) also stand out for their poor position.
Despite being considered equity criteria, several sub-Saharan African countries are at the bottom of the rankings (Tanzania, Senegal, Nigeria and Congo), emphasizing the urgent need for significant financing from the richest OECD countries towards lower-income nations.
“Based on equity criteria such as per capita deployment and investments per GDP, some emerging economies are taking the lead in the expansion of renewable energy, particularly Chile, China, Brazil and India. Furthermore, many other poorer developing countries in Africa and Asia need significant support from rich nations for an ambitious transition to renewable energy,” Stephan Singer, Senior Global Specialist at CAN International.
