The National-Level Energy Ladder and its Carbon Implications
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This paper documents an energy ladder that nations ascend as their per capita incomes
increase. On average, economic development results in an overall substitution from the
use of biomass to fulfill energy needs to energy sourced from fossil fuels, and then
toward nuclear power and certain low-carbon modern renewables such as wind power.
The results imply an inverse-U shaped relationship between per capita income and the
carbon intensity of energy, which is borne out in the data. Fossil fuel-poor countries are
more likely to climb to the upper rungs of the national-level energy ladder and
experience reductions in the carbon intensity of energy as they develop than fossil fuelrich
countries. Leapfrogging to low-carbon energy sources on the upper rungs of the
national-level energy ladder is one route via which developing countries can reduce the
magnitudes of their expected upswings in carbon dioxide emissions.