Monitoring progress towards green growth

Developing and implementing green growth policies in the energy sector requires appropriate information and indicators to support policy design and analysis and monitor progress. The OECD has developed a conceptual framework for monitoring progress towards green growth. While the set of indicators is still being refined, indicators pertinent to the energy sector are those that measure the carbon-productivity or intensity of energy production and consumption, energy intensity and efficiency, “clean” energy-related research and development and patents, as well as measures of energy related taxes and subsidies. This needs to be complemented with (i) end-use indicators that help policy makers understand how users will respond to changes in energy prices, income, technology, energy efficiency, production patterns, and lifestyle, (ii) additional energy-environment indicators, and with indicators characterising the level of access to energy. While energy statistics are well established in countries and at international level, measuring energy efficiency and innovation is difficult, and coherent industry level information is scarce. More needs to be done to improve data quality, methodologies and definitions, and to link the data to economic information.