The UAE and Saudi Arabia have climbed up an index that measures energy transition, a new report said on Wednesday.
According to the World Economic Forum’s latest report ‘Fostering Effective Energy Transition 2024’, both the GCC countries have scored highly on energy security because of their energy reserves.
The report’s Energy Transition Index (ETI) benchmarks 120 countries on the performance of their current energy systems, with a focus on balancing equity, environmental sustainability and energy security, and on transition-readiness,
Transition slows
While 107 of the 120 countries benchmarked in the report demonstrated progress on their energy transition journeys in the past decade, the overall pace of the transition has slowed and balancing its different facets remains a key challenge, the World Economic Forum said.
“Economic volatility, heightened geopolitical tensions and technological shifts have all had an impact, complicating its speed and trajectory. There is, however, some reason for optimism, with increasing global investments in renewables and significant growth in energy transition performance in sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade,” the report added.
“We must ensure that the energy transition is equitable, in and across emerging and developed economies,” said Roberto Bocca, head of the Centre for Energy and Materials, World Economic Forum. “Transforming how we produce and consume energy is critical to success. We need to act on three key levers for the energy transition urgently: reforming the current energy system to reduce its emissions, deploying clean energy solutions at scale, and reducing energy intensity per unit of GDP.”
Europe leads rankings
Europe led the ETI rankings, with the top 10 list for 2024 fully composed of countries from that region. Sweden (1) and Denmark (2) topped the rankings, having both placed in the top three countries each year for the past decade. They are followed by Finland (3), Switzerland (4) and France (5).
“These countries benefit from high political commitment, strong investments in research and development, expanded clean energy adoption – accelerated by the regional geopolitical situation, energy-efficiency policies and carbon pricing. France is a new entrant in the top five, with recent energy-efficiency measures reducing energy intensity in the past year,” the report said.
G20 countries close behind
Among G20 economies, Germany (11), Brazil (12), the United Kingdom (13), China (17) and the United States (19) join France in the ETI top 20, along with new entrants Latvia (15) and Chile (20), which were buoyed by increases in renewable energy capacity.
“China and Brazil have progressed significantly in recent years, primarily driven by long-term efforts to increase the share of clean energy and enhance their grid reliability. Brazil’s ongoing commitment to hydropower and biofuels, recent strides in solar energy, along with initiatives tailored to create new opportunities have been key in attracting investments. In 2023, China also significantly scaled up its renewable energy capacity and continued to grow and invest in its manufacturing capability in clean technologies such as batteries for electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines and other critical technologies. China, together with the US and India, is also leading in developing new energy solutions and technologies,” the report said.
Narrowing gap
The gap in overall ETI scores has narrowed between advanced and developing economies and the “centre of gravity” of the transition is moving to developing countries. However, clean energy investment remains concentrated in advanced economies and China.
“This underscores the need for financial support from advanced nations to facilitate an equitable energy transition in emerging and developing nations and forward-thinking policy-making in all nations to foster truly conducive investment conditions,” the report added.
GCC countries improve rankings
Several Gulf countries rank among the 120 countries listed. The UAE (ranked 52) has an ETI score of 57 and a transition-readiness (TR) score of 48.8.
Next is Saudi Arabia (58) with an ETI score of 55.9 and a TR score of 45.4.
Oman (rank 62, ETI score 55.5 and TR score 50.3), Bahrain (rank 103, ETI score 48.8 and TR score 33.8) and Kuwait (rank 104, ETI score 48.6 and TR score 40.3) are the other GCC countries.
Leading the GCC states was Qatar, with a rank of 50, an ETI score of 57.3 and a TR score of 53.1.
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