The scaling of local and global energy confinementwith elongation κ and current in L- and H-mode plasmasis explored. It is shown that the elongation enters globalconfinement only through the geometrical quantities of plasmavolume and surface area, while local transport does notcontribute. The global scaling τE∝κ0.8 iscaused by W∝nT0V with the volume V∝κand the surface area leading to T0∝κ-0.2.Empirical scalings of the effective heat diffusivity χ withκ, the current inside a flux surface I(x), Bp andq are presented. Applying I(x) makes χ independent ofκ, while a formulation with q yields strong implicitand explicit κ dependences.