Energy efficiency is not a goal

From Planet Ark:

American consumers are driving bigger gas-guzzling cars and buying more air conditioners and refrigerators as the overall energy efficiency of such products improves.... In what the study calls "the efficiency paradox," consumers have taken money saved from greater energy efficiency and spent it on more and bigger appliances and vehicles, consuming even more energy in the process.

"While seemingly perverse, improvements in energy efficiency result in more of the good being consumed -- not less," said Jeff Rubin, chief economist and chief strategist at CIBC World Markets, which conducted the study. The study concludes that stricter energy efficiency regulations aren't the answer to concerns over climate change and the depletion of oil supplies.

Exactly. Efficiency is not an end in itself; it's a means to an end, and governments would do better to target such ends rather than what they think is the best way of achieving them. This confusion bedevils government policy in many other areas: rather than target literacy, they target class sizes; rather than target unemployment, they introduce corrupt and wasteful import barriers; they rather than target global peace they pile up ever more weapons... the list goes on. "The problem is, energy efficiency is not the final objective," Rubin said. Indeed. Martin Wolf, of the Financial Times agrees. Discussing climate change he says:

Yes, we have a moral obligation to consider both the poor and future generations. Yes, the fact that the changes in the composition of the atmosphere are, to all intents and purposes, irreversible makes early and effective action essential. But acceptance of these points will not be sufficient to obtain meaningful action, instead of pious aspirations and much pretence. A good example of the latter is the proposition that it is enough to lower the carbon intensity of output. Alas, it is not, unless the reduction is very large indeed.