EnvStud 662 – Energy and Poverty
Content:
Sustainable development will only happen if poverty is tackled and the environment is protected. It is a false dilemma to say that we either tackle poverty or we save the planet. ITDG and Greenpeace believe that poverty can be tackled without costing the Earth. Crucial to both is the rapid expansion of clean, sustainable and renewable energy. There is now a growing consensus amongst policy makers that energy is central to reducing poverty and hunger, improving health, increasing literacy and education and improving the lives of women and children.
An action plan for sustainable energy for poverty reduction
Sustainable, clean energy can play a key role in reducing the huge burden of poverty and environmental degradation around the world. In order to maximise the role of clean and renewable energy in poverty reduction significant steps forward must be made to:
• implement strategies which will allow access to clean energy for the world’s two billion poorest people in ten years
• greatly expand global renewable energy markets particularly in the North to create economies of scale
• stimulate clean and renewable energy markets in developing countries to increase energy options available for sustainable development.
Clean renewable energy is defined as modern biomass, geothermal, wind, solar, small scale hydropower and marine energy.
The action plan sets out a clear agenda for achieving the win-win goal of poverty reduction and action on climate change.
Course Lecturer: Gerhard Berchtold, PhD
ECTS credits: 6
Coursebook:
Sustainable Energy for Poverty Reduction: an Action Plan
Authors: ITDG, IT Consultants, IT Power and ITDG
Alison Doig
Public Affairs Officer
Intermediate Technology Development Group
The Schumacher Centre for Technology and Development
Bourton-on-Dunsmore
Warwickshire CV23 9QZ
fax: +44 (0) 1926 634401
e-mail: alisond@itdg.org.uk
website: www.itdg.org
Paul V Horsman
Greenpeace International
Greenpeace International Climate Campaign
Greenpeace
Canonbury Villas
fax: +44 207 865 8201
e-mail: paul.horsman@uk.greenpeace.org
website: www.greenpeace.org
Some 1.6 billion people in the world, more than a quarter of humanity, have no access to electricity and 2.4 billion people rely on wood, charcoal or dung as their principal source of energy for cooking and heating. This fuel is literally killing people. Two and a half million women and children die each year from the indoor pollution from cooking fires.
The poor face another threat, paradoxically because of the over consumption of energy. Industrialised countries’ excessive fossil fuel consumption is driving climate change, and the poor are bearing the brunt because poverty makes them the most vulnerable and least able to cope. Thousands have already died and millions more made homeless due to extreme weather events. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change described
The rapid expansion of clean and sustainable energy offers a win-win for the poor and the environment. For the poor, particularly the rural poor, without basic energy services, renewable energy is often the cheapest option. For industrialised countries a massive uptake of renewable energy will help to achieve the dramatic emissions cuts needed to avoid climate change. The growth of renewable energy is both necessary to provide energy services without choking the planet and to create the economies of scale necessary for a global expansion of renewable energy.
This report reviews some international actions taking place to provide sustainable energy services to some of the world’s poor. Three countries,
The cost of getting energy to the world’s poor is not prohibitive. To light up the homes of 1.6 billion people with clean sustainable energy will cost in the region of US $9 billion a year for ten years. This compares with between US $250 and US $300 billion a year spent on subsidising fossil fuels and nuclear power.
World leaders at the World Summit on Sustainable Development have a historic opportunity to face the greatest threat to our collective survival because of our unsustainable use of energy. They must decide to answer the needs of nearly two billion poor people who lack access to sustainable modern energy services and also to change the conventional energy development path of industrialised countries towards renewable technologies.
An action plan for sustainable energy for poverty reduction
Sustainable, clean energy can play a key role in reducing the huge burden of poverty and environmental degradation around the world. In order to maximise the role of clean and renewable energy in poverty reduction significant steps forward must be made to:
• implement strategies which will allow access to clean energy for the world’s two billion poorest people in ten years
• greatly expand global renewable energy markets particularly in the North to create economies of scale
• stimulate clean and renewable energy markets in developing countries to increase energy options available for sustainable development.
Clean renewable energy is defined as modern biomass, geothermal, wind, solar, small scale hydropower and marine energy.
The action plan sets out a clear agenda for achieving the win-win goal of poverty reduction and action on climate change.
International declaration
An international declaration must produce a ‘Sustainable Energy Action Plan’ to both:
• massively expand the use of renewable energy North and South, and
• ensure access to sustainable and renewable sources of energy to the
two billion of the world’s poorest people who currently do not have access to basic, modern energy services, in ten years as a fundamental part of achieving the Millennium Development Goal of halving the people in poverty by 2015.
- Teacher: Gerhard Berchtold
- Teacher: Peter Hodecek