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These Are the Cleanest-Powered, Most Energy Efficient Nations on the Planet

See how we stack up against the rest of the G20 nations, and against those making the biggest strides towards efficiency and clean power capacity

Every nation in the world must become much more energy efficient, and much more capable of generating clean energy. Some of those nations must also do so while becoming much more energy-rich, and therein lies the rub. But in a world contextualized by the massive global climatic change our century-plus-spanning fossil fuel spree is hastening, nations rich enough to start making the switch have no excuse to be not be doing so. Like, now.

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But they’re not. Most have simply not made the kind of progress towards embracing renewable power or adopting efficiency standards that any sane human staring down the barrel of global warming would agree is necessary to make. And the U.S. is the worst offender.

Here, you can see how we stack up against the rest of the G20 nations, and against those making the biggest strides towards efficiency and clean power capacity:

Graphic comes via Direct Blinds, which "has looked into the ecological standards of major nations around the world: those forming the G20, as well as the top ten leaders in renewable energy and CO2 emissions." You'll find them above; click the top three tabs for the rankings. By their estimation, the top 10 cleanest powered countries — each runs on just about 100% clean energy — are:

1. Paraguay (100%)

2. Iceland (99.99%)

3. Mozambique (99.96%)

4. Zambia

5. Nepal

6. Democratic Republic of Congo

7. Albania

8. Tajikistan

9. Norway

10. Costa Rica

And OK, sure; the leaders listed are small nations with small populations, and others are emitting less CO2 emissions because they are largely undeveloped. The countries that run on the cleanest power are those like Paraguay, which gets most of its energy from hydroelectric dams (as do most noted above), and Iceland, which captures the geothermal heat escaping all around it on the volcanic island where it's perched. Yet the U.S. gets its ass kicked on efficiency standards and share of renewables even amongst other big rich countries. Here's another take, via the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy:

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The U.S., there, is ninth. Not OK. The bottom line: The U.S. and Europe wastes a ton of energy, and still burns way too much fossil fuel. Neither are sufficiently decarbonizing their economies; we're not even close.