2015. In this, Canada represents an interesting case. Canada follows the USA’s trend closely in matters of per capita energy consumption but falls far behind in matters of population growth, expenditure in research and development (particularly in energy and environment), expenditure in defense and pharmaceutical industries, and other long-term economic stimuli. Japan, on the other hand represents other extremity of the energy consciousness spectrum. As can be seen in Table 2.5, Japan maintains steady per capita energy consumption at almost half the value of that of Canada. At the same time, Japan has maintained very high relative investment in education and research and development. However, Japan’s population has been dropping, or keeping pace with Europe and unlike the USA. Canada’s population growth has been a mix of Europe/Japan (decline) and USA (mild growth). The difficulty involved in maintaining a balance between urbanization and per capita energy consumption is most sternly manifested in the case of Saudi Arabia. Both Germany and Russia show mild per capita energy consumption, signaling prudent usage of energy sources and high energy efficiency. Saudi Arabia is a ‘developing country’ in all measures except that it is projected to be the most energy-consuming country in the world by 2015. In as early as 1995, it exceeded the per capita energy consumption of Russia and Germany and is slated to exceed that of USA by 2015. Saudi Arabia represents the global trend by ‘developing countries’ to emulate the wasteful habits of the USA while shunning positive aspects of USA in the areas of economic growth, education or research and development. This trend of Saudi Arabia is alarming and is a trademark of global obsession with wasteful energy habits. Saudi Arabia is just an example of this obsession that is all pervasive in the developing countries as can be seen in Figure 2.11.
Figure 2.10 There are different trends in population growth depending on the state of the economy.
Table 2.5 Per capita energy consumption (in TOE) for certain countries (From Islam et al., 2018).
| Countries | 1990 | 1995 | 2000 | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 |
| USA | 7.7 | 7.8 | 8.2 | 7.9 | 7.3 | 7.3 |
| Canada | 7.5 | 7.9 | 8.1 | 8.4 | 7.6 | 7.6 |
| Japan | 3.6 | 4.0 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 3.7 | 3.9 |
| Germany | 4.4 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.0 | 3.8 |
| Russia | 5.9 | 4.3 | 4.2 | 4.5 | 4.8 | 5.5 |
| Saudi Arabia | 3.9 | 4.8 | 5.1 | 6.0 | 6.6 | 7.7 |
| China | 0.8 | 0.9 | 0.9 | 1.3 | 1.8 | 2.2 |
| India | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 0.7 |
| Indonesia | 0.6 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 1.2 |
| Sri Lanka | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.6 |
Figure 2.11 shows the growth in per capita energy consumption for some key countries that are not characterized as ‘more developed countries’. These countries all had very modest per capita energy needs in 1990. However, they all show exponential growth in energy needs in the last two decades. China leads the pack with the highest growth in energy needs. It nearly triples the energy need in 25 years. This trend shows that China could have dealt with its ‘population crisis’ by keeping the per capita energy consumption in check. This would have avoided many shortcomings of the one-child policy that China has imposed on its population for decades. Similar growth is shown by Indonesia – another country that attempted to decrease its population rather while increasing per capita energy needs. Over the two decades, Indonesia has doubled its per capita energy consumption. India has shown restraints in per capita energy consumption. While this is the case, its per capita energy consumption has doubled during the decades of concern. Sri Lanka has been the lowest energy consuming country (from the list of countries) but still maintains growth very similar to India and Indonesia.
Figure 2.11 Per capita energy consumption growth for certain countries.
It has been recognized for some time that there is a strong correlation between per capita energy need and GNP (as well as GDP). Over the last 30 years, the average consumption of the global ‘South’ has been nearly an order-of-magnitude less than that of the ‘West’ (Goldemberg et al., 1985; Khan and Islam, 2012). As the West has been trying to boost its population and contain its per capita energy consumption, while increasing its GNP, the ‘south’ has been trying to contain its population while increasing the per capita energy consumption as well as GNP.
These contradictory measures have created confusions in both the west and the ‘south’. This is most visible in the definition of GNP and GDP that reward an economy for increasing wasteful habits (e.g. per capita energy consumption). This contradiction has been discussed by Khan and Islam (2007), who introduced new techniques for measuring economic growth that could take account of true sustainability. They showed that true sustainability would increase
