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Strong Energy Measures of Advanced Countries

Posted July. 18, 2008 08:07,   

한국어

The Japanese government recently released the measures for summer energy conservation (for June through September) which says, “The government should set an example by set the target for air conditioning at 28 degrees Celsius.” The room temperature at the Japanese government complex is lower than Korea’s official target temperature for the public sector by 1 degree Celsius.

Introduced in 2005, the “Cool Biz” policy, which encourages office workers not to wear ties and maintain the room temperatures at 28 degrees, has spread to the lives of ordinary Japanese citizens.

The United States, the world’s largest energy consumer, is no exception in the global issue of soaring oil prices and climate change. The U.S. Department of Energy is implementing the “Building America” program, which forces new buildings to reduce 70 percent of their energy consumption and exiting buildings to cut it by 20-30 percent by 2020. The program was developed based on the understanding that the building sector accounts for 40 percent of the country’s entire energy consumption. Furthermore, the U.S. department is also coming up with the “Zero-energy Building Program” in which buildings maintain their net energy consumption at zero by generating energy and minimizing energy consumption.

As the third oil shock is being materialized, advanced countries are urging their people to participate in the energy conservation measures, while focusing on securing natural resources.

According to the “Energy Conservation Polices and Utilization Methods” released by the National Intelligence Service that the Dong-A Ilbo obtained yesterday, and reports from the newspaper’s overseas correspondents, advanced countries whose self-reliance ratio of oil and gas development and income levels are higher than Korea are coming up with energy conservation measures stronger than Korea’s and are actually implementing them.

Last December, Germany introduced the “Consolidated Energy-Climate Protection Program,” which is stronger than the “Joint Policy Strategy for New Energy,” the climate change measures of the European Union. According to the program, owners of homes or stores will be obliged to mark energy consumption of the buildings in leasing or selling them. The policy will be applied to all buildings from July next year.

The United Kingdom took one step further and is expanding the scope of the “Certificate of Building Energy-Efficiency Levels” to include non-residence buildings, while developing a policy of classifying energy efficiency of building structures and window designs into nine levels and applying differentiate fees.

The Danish government decided to introduce the “Energy Conservation Certificate Issuance and Transaction System” from 2010, in which it issues certificates of energy saved during the use of buildings or products by households or corporations, and allows them to sell the certificates. Thanks to strong energy measures, Denmark successfully raised its energy self-reliance from 5 percent in 1980 to 145 percent in 2006.

A source at Korea Energy Management Corporation said, “Advanced countries are implementing strong energy conservation measures, since most of them are subject to the Kyoto Treaty, which obligates them to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. As Korea cannot be an exception in such a global trend, the government energy measures will be only strengthened.”