A new report by a group of international agencies headed by the World Bank concludes that bringing electricity to all of Earth’s citizens by 2030 will require doubling or tripling the current annual spending of $400 billion a year.
Because access to energy is essential in bringing people out of poverty, there has been a focused effort to extend electricity to those who lack it. In the past 20 years, 1.7 billion people gained access to electricity. Over the same period, an additional 1.6 billion people were able to use cleaner, safer cooking fuels. However, over those 20 years, the world population grew so that the number of people in energy poverty has stayed about the same.
In total, about 1.2 billion people – nearly as many as the entire population of India – live without access to electricity. And 2.8 billion people burn wood, crop waste, dung, and other biomass to cook and heat their homes.
The United Nations’ initiative ‘Sustainable Energy for All” has a goal to provide universal access to electricity. It seeks to double both the world’s share of renewable energy and the pace of improving energy efficiency, so that we can extend access to power without worsening climate change.
The World Bank report recommends an array of initiatives to fight energy poverty and boost development of cleaner energy. One of its main conclusions is that it will take substantial and sustained investments from both the public and private sectors to make it happen.
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Web Links
Five Surprising Facts About Energy Poverty
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/05/130529-surprising-facts-about-energy-poverty/
Photo, taken on March 19, 2008, courtesy of Land Rover Our Planet via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. Support for Earth Wise comes from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY.