Trilemma 2021

This is the second year that the Council has published the World Energy Trilemma Index during the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to threaten health and disrupt the global economy. The Trilemma is an energy policy pathfinding tool that relies upon historic data to assess historic past energy policy performance and, as such, the impact of the pandemic is not yet fully reflected in the data. While further insights into the effect of the pandemic on energy are becoming visible, such as depressed demand and fragmented local recoveries, the longer-term implications for energy systems and transition remain unclear.

National context is critical to how countries develop their different energy policies, based upon their domestic circumstances with varying natural resources, geographies, and socio-economic systems. These differing contexts lead to a divergence of systems that means that there can be no single path for a successful energy transition; instead, each country must determine its own best energy policy pathway with respect to its national situation and priorities. Such diversity means that direct comparisons between the rankings and scores of countries in the Trilemma are less informative, but instead should help provide an opening for a dialogue, with countries learning from and with each other about what policies work in what circumstances and why. The Energy Trilemma Index can help countries and energy stakeholders to prioritise those areas of energy policy to improve most and explore which options might be more appropriate.