Korea Shows Poor Performance in the WEC’s Energy Sustainability Index

The World Energy Council (WEC) announced the energy sustainability rankings at the World Energy Congress 2013, which kicked off at the EXCO Convention Center in Daegu City on October 15. In the ranking, Korea fell no less than 10 notches year-on-year to stand at 64th place. 

The energy sustainability index evaluates the energy performance and contextual performance of 129 countries around the world. The former category covers factors such as energy security, energy equity, and environmental sustainability, while the latter assesses each country’s political, social, and economic situations. 

It is due to its poor performance in the energy performance sector that Korea slid in the ranking. The country moved up in contextual performance from 21st to 16th, but slid down 13 notches from 72nd last year to 85th this year. The sharp drop is because it fell from 89th to 103rd in the energy security category and from 32nd to 49th in the energy equity. In particular, it failed to join the top 100 in the energy security segment this year, revealing its high dependence on imported energy sources and the slow progress of its natural resources development projects abroad. 

Korea succeeded in joining the ranks of the top 10 in contextual performance thanks to its economic advantages. However, this was eclipsed by the sluggish performance in the other category.

The WEC said in the report that Korea’s effort to lower the dependence on imported energy, which amounts to 97% now, by developing overseas natural resources has encountered the challenge of low productivity, the lack of human resources, and technical limitations. 

In the meantime, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, and Britain topped the ranking this year to continue European dominance. They were followed by Canada, Norway, New Zealand, Spain, and France. 

Among Asian countries, Japan took the highest spot of 16th. Qatar and Taiwan took the 18th and 27th spots, respectively, followed by Malaysia (37th), Hong Kong (40th), and the United Arab Emirates (44th).