Report - UNDP Russia

development targets, starting from the crisisperiod, it needs to prioritize humandevelopment, movement away from the energyand raw material economy, and structuraltransformation in order to create an innovativeand socially-oriented development model. Thishas nothing to do with chasing quantitativeratings, whether they are value indicators (GDP,etc) or physical volumes (output of oil, gas,metals, etc). The accent in the new economymust be on qualitative and not quantitativedevelopment.8.2. Types of energy indicatorsThe energy factor is widely reflected insustainable development indicators, becausesustainable development depends on dueattention to economic, social andenvironmental aspects, all of which have muchto do with energy 2 . Two approaches are mostwidely used in both theory and in practice. Thefirst is to construct an integrated (aggregate)indicator (index), which enables judgment ofthe level of sustainability of social andeconomic development. The aggregationusually relies on three groups of indicators:economic, social and environmental. Thesecond approach involves construction of asystem of indicators, each of which reflectsdifferent aspects of sustained development.The aspects chosen are most usually economic,environmental, social and institutional. This isthe approach used by UN sustainabilityindicators.The energy factor has priority in all theapproaches, as seen most clearly in ubiquitoususe of the energy intensity index. It is importantto grasp that division of the indicators intoeconomic, environmental, and social is relative.Some indicators can reflect several aspects ofsustainability, and this is apparent from theexample of energy intensity, which is included indifferent groups of indicators by the UN, WorldBank, Organization for Economic Cooperationand Development (OECD) and various countries:economic (reflecting efficiency of energyresource utilization in the economy);environmental (the level of pollution andgreenhouse gas emissions); and social (since thevolume and content of emissions has impact onhuman health).Energy intensity is basic to globalsystems of sustainability indicators and to thesystems used by specific countries. It is a keyindicator for Russia, helping to gaugesustainability of its energy sector and of thecountry as a whole. As such, it should beincluded in programmes, strategies, conceptsand projects at both federal and regionallevels.The following energy intensity indicatorsare most commonly used at the macroeconomiclevel:• energy intensity of GDP as regardsconsumption of energy resources;• energy intensity of GDP as regardsproduction of energy resources (theproportion between primary energyproduction and GDP);• energy efficiency (often identified as thereverse indicator of energy intensity);• specific indicators of energy intensity ofGDP (electric intensity, heat intensity, oilintensity, coal intensity, gas intensity ofGDP) etc.In Russia’s case it is important todistinguish between two energy intensityindicators: intensity in terms of domesticconsumption of energy as a share of GDP, andintensity in terms of the share of energyproduction in GDP. The consumption indicatoris the classic and most widely used indicator.But it clearly fails to take account of manyeconomic, environmental and socialconsequences of the extraction andproduction of energy for export, since (all else2The indicators of sustainable development are studied in details in the monograph by S.N.Bobylev, N.V. Zubarevich, S.V.Solovyova, Y.S.Vlasov. ‘The Indicators of Sustainable Development: Economy, Society, Nature’/ under the editorship of S.N. Bobylev. M.: MAX Press, 2008.144National Human Development Report in the Russian Federation 2009