This Great Graphic comes from the Visual.ly blog. The data comes from the World Bank and the Canadian International Council. It shows three different ways of thinking aboutof energy efficiency.
The top chart looks at CO2 emissions. How much carbon is generated is a standard measure. he US and China are the world's largest economies and they produce the most carbon. The US CO2 emissions does not seem out of line with the size of its economy compared with most of the countries shown here. China's emissions seem disproportionately large as does Russia's and India's. Japan's seems disproportionately small.
The second charts shows energy use per capita. Here, Canada, Australia and Saudi Arabia stand out for high energy. On a per capita basis, Canada outstrips the US. Saudi Arabia consumes almost as much as the US on a per capita basis. For the size of it economy, Japan's energy consumption on this metric also seem disproportionately low.
The third shows energy efficiency in terms of how much GDP is generated for every unit of energy. This is calculated on the constant 2005 PPP basis. Here the efficiency of the UK stands out, following closely by German and Japan. Unexpectedly, Mexico generates almost as much output as Japan per unit of energy input and Brazil is not far behind.