FIVE SURPRISING FACTS ABOUT ENERGY POVERTY

By Marianne Lavellefor|May 30, 2013 National Geographic

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/130529-surprising-facts-about-energy-poverty

The world needs to double or triple its current spending—estimated at about $400 billion a
year—to meet the United Nations' goal of bringing clean and modern electricity to all people by
2030, says a new report by a wide group of international agencies led by the World Bank.

Although nations are succeeding in bringing power to more people, those efforts have barely
kept pace with population growth over the past two decades, said the report, by the World Bank. As
a result, about 1.2 billion people—nearly as many as the entire population of India—still live without
access to electricity, while 2.8 billion people rely on wood, crop waste, and other biomass to cook and
heat their homes. Unless the world addresses the widespread problem of energy poverty, the World
Bank said, other efforts at economic development are likely to fall short.

"Access to energy is absolutely fundamental in the struggle against poverty," said World Bank
Vice President Rachel Kyte. "It is energy that lights the lamp that lets you do your homework, that
keeps the heat on in a hospital, that lights the small businesses where most people work. Without
energy, there is no economic growth, there is no dynamism, and there is no opportunity."

The report provides the hard numbers detailing the extent of the problem that UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon is seeking to tackle in the UN's two-year-old Sustainable Energy for All initiative.
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim serves as cochair of the advisory board in that effort. Its goal is to
provide universal access to electricity, while doubling both the world's share of renewable energy and
its pace in improving energy efficiency. Richenda van Leeuwan, executive director of the nonprofit
United Nations Foundation's energy access initiative, one of 15 international groups that partnered in
developing the report and accompanying framework for measuring progress, says the data is "a
critical step forward" in the effort to address the problem. "It is impossible to determine how we are
doing in the absence of a measurement mechanism," she said. "Having credible data is key to being
able to determine and report back on where we are—as a world—in achieving these common goals,
and where efforts need to be redoubled."

Here are a few of the significant findings of the report:

Huge Progress Undercut by Population Growth

The effort to tackle energy poverty may look as if it has been at a standstill because estimates
of the number of people without electricity have barely changed for years. In fact, electricity has
been extended to 1.7 billion more people between 1990 and 2010, and 1.6 billion people gained
access to cleaner cooking fuels. But world population grew 1.6 billion over that same period, with
high growth in regions with poor energy access—a problem concentrated in about 20 countries in
Asia and Africa. The World Bank report said the pace of expansion would have to double to meet the
100 percent energy access target by 2030.

Fastest-Moving Countries Still Have Largest Problem

No country has moved as quickly as India to deliver electricity to more people, extending the
reach of its grid to an average 24 million more people each year since 1990. And China by far has
achieved more than any other nation in energy efficiency, yielding savings that add up over the past
20 years to an amount equal to the energy China used over that same time frame. Yet both nations
still face the world's greatest energy poverty challenges. India has 306.2 million people without

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electricity, and 705 million people who rely on wood and biomass for cooking. In China, 612.8 million
people—nearly twice the population of the United States—lack clean fuel for cooking and heating.

Cooking Smoke Kills

About 3.5 million people, mainly women and children, die each year from respiratory illness
due to harmful indoor air pollution from wood and biomass cookstoves. That's more than double the
annual deaths attributed either to malaria (1.2 million) or to HIV/AIDS (1.5 million). In the past,
international health and energy authorities looked to kerosene as a cleaner alternative, but the World
Bank report pointed out that recent scientific study confirms that kerosene can emit troubling
amounts of health damaging pollutants, while posing a major burn and poisoning risk. For tracking
progress in the Sustainable Energy for All initiative, the report recommended that kerosene
cookstoves be considered a low level of basic access; more preferable are alternatives such as biogas,
liquid petroleum gas (propane), electricity, and natural gas.

Energy Scarcity in the Shadow of Plenty

Some energy-producing countries are failing to deliver fuel or power to their own people.
Nigeria, the largest oil-producing country in Africa, is second only to India in the number of people
living without electricity: 82.4 million. Another 117.8 million Nigerians rely on wood and biomass for
cooking, even though the nation is sitting on the largest known natural gas reserves on the continent.

Without infrastructure for gathering or delivering natural gas (which could be used for
cooking or generating electricity), much of the natural gas produced in oil fields is flared off. Another
energy producer with widespread energy poverty is Indonesia. Though it is the world's largest
exporter of coal by weight, and was the eighth largest exporter of natural gas in 2011, Indonesia
nonetheless is home to 131.2 million people who rely on wood and biomass cookstoves.

Sobering Picture on Rapid Renewable Growth

Even though worldwide wind power has grown at an average rate of 25 percent and solar
energy at a rate of 11.4 percent since 1990, those two forms of renewable energy—along with
geothermal, waste, and marine energy—contribute barely 1 percent of global energy consumption,
the World Bank Report said. Instead, 80 percent of all renewable energy generated comes from
hydropower. Burning of wood and biomass also account for a large share, even though the
environmental sustainability of those practices is questionable. The UN's Sustainable Energy for All
initiative relies on large growth of renewable energy and energy efficiency, so the world can extend
access to power without worsening climate change. The World Bank report said renewables,
including hydro and biofuel, now make up about 18 percent of the world energy mix, a share that
would need to double to 36 percent by 2030 to meet the UN's goals. At the current pace of growth,
the world is on track to increase renewable energy's share to just 19.4 percent, the report concluded.
"Business as usual will not remotely suffice" to meet the UN's goals, the report said.

The World Bank report recommended a broad array of initiatives to fight energy poverty and
boost development of cleaner energy, including government actions such as a phaseout of fossil fuel
subsidies and establishing a price on carbon. But the report said achieving the steep increases
necessary in financing for energy is unlikely to be possible without "substantial investment" from the
private sector.