The two pie charts depict the correlation between energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in an average Australian household.
The data indicates that water heating and heating are the top two energy-consuming services utilized by Australian families, accounting for almost half of the greenhouse gas emissions released by a typical household. The remaining appliances may represent a smaller portion of the energy usage, but they contribute to the other half of the greenhouse gas emissions.
Heating is the most energy-consuming service, accounting for 42% of an Australian family’s energy use, followed by water heating at 30%. Although these two services are the most demanding in terms of energy consumption, they generate only 47% of the greenhouse gas emissions, with individual contributions of 15% and 32%, respectively.
In contrast, cooling, lighting, refrigeration, and other appliances account for 2%, 4%, 7%, and 15% of the energy consumed by Australian households, respectively. However, the contribution of greenhouse gas emissions for each of these services varies. Other appliances are responsible for 28%, refrigeration for 14%, lighting for 8%, and cooling for 3% of the greenhouse gas emissions, indicating that four of the six services studied have a combined contribution of 53%.