Classification of European countries according to indicators related to electricity generation

Abstract

On the way to complying with the 2015 Paris agreements regarding climate change, there are notable differences between the positions of the countries. Even considering the same geographical area such as Europe, the existence of a supranational environmental policy, assumed by the 27 European Union (EU) countries, generates evident differences with neighboring countries that do not belong to this organization. In this paper, 17 indicators related to electricity generation are proposed and, based on the information from the year 2020 of these indicators for 45 European countries, two multivariate techniques are applied with the aim of verifying whether or not such a policy generates similarities and differences between those countries affected by such supranational policy and those who are not obligated to apply it. The initial hypothesis seems to have been fulfilled in part: the non-EU countries have mainly been grouped together, while the members of the EU have separated from them. This result would be in line with the fact that the supranational policy of the EU seems to have the expected effect of homogenizing the countries in terms of the energy variables considered in this analysis.