Keywords

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

1 Evaluation Results of REC

According to the evaluation indicator system and the mathematic model of REC, the evaluation and analysis are made on REC in 2012. Table 8.1 lists the rankings and scores of REC and the subordinate indicators in 2012 and Fig. 8.1 displays the REC scores of the six continents as well as the top three countries of each continent in 2012.

Table 8.1 Scores and rankings of REC as well as the tertiary and individual indicators in 2012
Full size table
Fig. 8.1
figure 1

REC scores of six continents & top three countries of each continent in 2012

Full size image

According to Table 8.1, the countries with REC ranking 1st–10th include Myanmar, Congo, Rep., Gabon, Bangladesh, Nicaragua, Norway, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Malaysia and Panama; the 11th–20th rankings are Philippines, New Zealand, Canada, Brazil, Cambodia, Australia, Slovenia, Peru, Vietnam and Mauritius; the 21st–30th rankings are Nepal, Honduras, Cameroon, Russian Federation, Venezuela, RB, Colombia, Angola, Bolivia, Zambia and Ecuador; and the bottom 10 countries are Mauritania, Lesotho, Uzbekistan, Israel, Oman, Syrian Arab Republic, Iraq, Yemen, Rep., Egypt, Arab Rep. and Jordan.

In 2012, the highest score of REC is 36.6 points, the lowest score is 4.0, the average score is 17.8 and the standard deviation (SD) is 6.8; the highest score and the lowest score differ greatly with the margin of 32.6 points; 65 countries score higher than the average point. Generally speaking, the overall level of REC is rather low; the difference is very large between the countries ranking both top and bottom while the difference among the other countries is not so obvious.

The scores of REC show elliptical distribution. Seven countries score above 30 points; 36 countries score 20–30; 68 countries score 10–20; and 22 countries score below 10 points.

The countries with higher REC are mainly developing countries. Among the 20 countries ranking ahead, 15 are developing countries, accounting for 75 %. Most developed countries are middle on REC. A large part of developing countries still have rather low REC.

To compare and analyze the REC levels of all the countries in a more visual way, the REC scores are displayed in Fig. 8.2. According to Fig. 8.2, the REC scores of the countries are concentrated, mostly in 10–30 points (up to 104 countries, accounting for 78.2 % of the total), showing little differences. Among the developed countries, Norway scores the highest, 30.4 points, and ranks 6th; among the developing countries, Myanmar scores the highest, 36.6 points. They have little difference.

Fig. 8.2
figure 2

Rankings and scores of REC 2012

Full size image

2 Factor Scores and Contribution Rates of REC

Table 8.1 lists the evaluation results of the subordinate indicators of REC and displays the scores and rankings of 4 pillars and 14 individual indicators of REC in 2012 so as to analyze the influences of the pillars and individual indicators on REC of the countries.

On pillars, water resources enjoys the highest standard deviation, hitting 17.9, indicating that this indicator has the largest differences among the countries and is the most primary factor causing REC differences among the countries. The indicator of forest resources also has relatively high standard deviation, 14.7, contributing a lot to REC differences among the countries. Land resources and energy resources have small standard deviations, respectively 9.6 and 9.5, indicating they have small influence on REC differences among the countries. Overall, the countries have little differences on REC. Such differences are mainly caused by the differences of water resources and forest resources, which play the greatest part; two indicators, land resources and energy resources, also play a role, with less contribution. Hereafter, all the countries shall keep on great efforts in water resources and forest resources to achieve the effective and rapid improvement of REC and narrow the gap with the other countries, and meanwhile, pay close attention to enhance the competitiveness of land resources and energy resources to accelerate the improvement of REC.

On individual indicators, proportion of combustible renewables and waste to total energy consumption enjoys the highest standard deviation, hitting 27.9, indicating that this indicator has very large differences among the countries and is the most primary factor causing REC differences among the countries. The indicators of total internal renewable water resources, annual precipitation, percentage of arable land to total land area and proportion of land area covered by forest also have high standard deviation, 23.7, 23.5, 23.3 and 23.3 respectively, contributing a lot to REC differences among the countries. The other indicators have relatively low standard deviation, indicating they have less influence on REC differences among the countries.

To analyze the contribution of the pillars to REC, firstly multiply the scores of the pillars by respective weights, then convert them into the scores at sub-index and finally divide them by the total score of sub-index to get the contribution rates of the pillars. Thus, we could find the contribution of each pillar to the sub-index more visually, as shown in Fig. 8.3.

Fig. 8.3
figure 3

Contribution rates of pillars of REC 2012

Full size image

According to Fig. 8.3, forest resources contributes the most to REC with the average contribution rate of 33.7 %; the contribution rate of water resources the next, 16.5 %; energy resources the least, 15.0 %. Some countries enjoy very high contribution rates of forest resources, even above 60 %, e.g. Egypt and Jordan. And some countries have very high contribution rates of water resources, above 60 %, e.g. Singapore, Ecuador, El Salvador and Philippines. Therefore, to enhance REC, the countries shall focus specially on the competitiveness of forest resources and water resources, while not ignoring the competitiveness of land resources and energy resources.