Promoting Highly Efficient Appliances For Climate Change Mitigation And Social Inclusion

The appliance sector is responsible for 39.3% of all energy-related CO2 emissions, equivalent to the combined emissions of China, Europe, and Brazil in 2020. Developing countries have significantly lower access to appliances compared to G20 economies. Therefore, promoting highly efficient appliances is critical not only for climate change mitigation but also for adaptation, and social inclusion – requiring ambitious support from major economies. Even if current benchmark appliance efficiency policies were adopted worldwide, the sector’s emissions would still exceed the IEA’s 2050 net-zero target by at least 7 GT. As primary manufacturer and largest consumers of appliances, G20 must urgently take action to promote highly efficient appliances while simultaneously addressing the inequitable gaps in appliance access. Considering these circumstances, we recommend to G20 countries ambitious, yet currently feasible, energy efficiency policies: increase energy Standards and Label (S&L) policy ambition to promote market transformation toward highly efficient products; lead joint initiatives for regional harmonization of standards & labels; implement coordinated and complementary actions to assure market development, affordability, and social inclusion. CLASP has identified ten key appliances that must be targeted by a G20 joint strategy to rapidly enhance their energy efficiency. If those policies were implemented by 2025 for the key appliances sector, G20 countries (as whole) could achieve energy savings of 54,974 TWh and a reduction in cumulative CO; emissions by 20.8 GT by 2050. Brazil, with a large market and a significantly outdated appliance industry compared to even other developing countries, should seize the opportunity, as the current leader of the G20, to propel it forward.