This new report produced by the WEF in collaboration with Accenture, looks into pathways to creating a more effective transition towards a New Energy Architecture. It reveals how countries are progressing by applying the newly developed Energy Architecture Performance Index. In addition, two deep-dive country studies have been conducted on Japan and India.

This latest regional human development report for the Asia Pacific focuses on the need for the region to find ways to continue to grow economically while reducing poverty and tackling climate change and environmental concerns.

Asia is at a crossroads. As the world’s most populous region, with high economic growth, a rising share of global greenhouse gas emissions, and the most vulnerability to climate risks, Asia must be at the center in the global fight against climate change. Simply stated, Asia’s current resource- and emission-intensive growth pattern is not sustainable, with further gains in human well-being constrained by the environmental carrying capacity. This study recognizes low-carbon green growth as an imperative—not an option—for developing Asia.

China has embarked on one of the largest endeavours in climate economics ever, to establish a national carbon emission trading system by 2015. As a first step, carbon-trading pilots have been initiated in seven provinces and cities. The success or failure of those experiments will to a large extent determine the future of climate policies in China. This report evaluates the progress so far and examines the key challenges ahead. While the attempts to develop a domestic carbon trading are sincere and ambitious, there are considerable difficulties.

This Policy Pathway develops the critical steps for policy makers implementing energy management programmes for industry. Optimising energy use in industry is essential to improve industrial competitiveness and achieve wider societal goals such as energy security, economic recovery and development, climate change mitigation and environmental protection. While there is significant potential to decrease energy consumption in this sector, opportunities to improve energy efficiency are still under-exploited.

In this report, the authors take stock of the trends and indicators that tell how, and how well, the world of business is doing to address sustainability concerns. It presents 10 key trends one needs to know for 2012.

This study presents data from the ten countries which together account for more than 85% of the world’s CO2 emissions from coal‐fired power generation and discusses the percentage of that population of plants that could be particularly attractive for considering CCS retrofit.

This paper explores the implications of a potential shift to low-carbon consumption in wealthy countries for the poorer countries where many goods are made, and looks at ways to minimise negative impacts. A growing body of research shows how shifts in consumer behaviour could lead to reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. By buying fewer goods, especially high-GHG items (e.g. red meat), and redirecting any spending to low-GHG alternatives, consumers could help reduce emissions.

The populous, fast growing emerging economies of Brazil, China, Egypt, India and South Africa face daunting challenges on the energy, environment and climate change fronts. These five countries accounted for 42 per cent of the global population in 2008, but had only 26 per cent of global energy supply. Brazil, China, Egypt and India have per capita incomes below the global average even in PPP terms; only South Africa has a higher income than the global average. Per capita income grew between 1990 and 2008 at 9.1 per cent in China, 4.7 per cent in India and 2.5 per cent in Egypt.