ABSTRACT
The countries of Central and Eastern Europe b consume more than 6 per cent of the world’s primary energy and release more than 7 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. The republics of the former Soviet Union (FSU) consume 16 per cent of the world’s energy, and release 15 per cent of the carbon. On a per capita basis, their consumption of energy is similar to that of the industrialized economies in Western Europe. Central planners in the former socialist bloc countries often measured success by the amount of energy produced and consumed by their economies. But they did not mention that their nations’ per capita income was two to three times lower than in Western Europe. Simple arithmetic indicates that the economies of the former socialist bloc use two to three times as much energy to produce one unit of national income (see Figure 12.1).
