1.5 billion people – a quarter of mankind – have no electricity

NEW YORK – A stunning new report prepared by the U.N says 1.5 billion people – that is a quarter of the world’s population – live in the dark with no electricity in their lives.

UN Development Programme submitted its findings just 13 days before the world climate change summit in Denmark meets to consider energy use and global warming.

“The majority of the 1.5 billion people who live in the dark are in the least developed countries (LDCs) of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, according to the report, “The Energy Access Situation in Developing Countries: A Review Focusing on the Least Developed Counties and Sub-Saharan Africa.”

“Expanding energy access is essential to tackle global poverty. It needs to happen at the lowest cost and in the cleanest and most sustainable way possible to help developing countries establish a low-carbon route to development,” Olav Kjorven, director of the Bureau for Development Policy, told reporters in New York.

“Almost half of humanity is completely disconnected from the debate on how to drive human progress with less emissions and greener energy because their reality is much more basic than that: they carry heavy loads of water and food on their backs because they don’t have transport; they cook over wood fires that damage their health, not with electricity, gas or oil,” said Kjorven.

“We must ensure that the energy needs of these people are central to a new climate agreement,” he added, referring to the pact to curb greenhouse gas emissions that countries are hoping to achieve when they meet in the Danish capital in December.

Kjorven noted that two million people die every year from causes associated with exposure to smoke from cooking with biomass and coal – and 99 per cent of those deaths occur in developing countries.
In LDCs and sub-Saharan Africa, half of all deaths from pneumonia in children under five years, chronic lung disease and lung cancer in adults are attributed to the use of solid fuel, compared with 38 per cent in developing countries overall.

According to the report, to halve the proportion of people living in poverty by 2015 – the first of the eight globally agreed targets known as the Millennium Development Goals – 1.2 billion more people will need access to electricity and two billion more people will need access to modern fuels like natural gas or Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), also called propane.

“We have to see Copenhagen as an opportunity. For a climate deal to work, it also has to be a development deal. Developing countries have to see that this deal would help them move forward, not slow down,” Kjorven stated.

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