Slovakia, which depends on Russia for all its gas, has declared a state of emergency, forcing big energy users to cut consumption-including its flagship foreign carmakers.
That target will not be easily met, and the looming deadline puts pressure on officials to crack down on heavy energy users.
Another obstacle is that energy users do not recognize how much they can benefit from improving efficiency, because saved energy comes in millions of invisibly small pieces, not in obvious big chunks.
The BBC, which has ended up producing most of Ascension's electricity because its transmitters are the biggest energy users, puts some of that power to work desalinating seawater.
In effect, governments are subsidising the use of raw materials by failing to charge big energy users for the emissions they cause.
