Energy security and sustainable development

In rural China, South Asia, and in parts of Latin America, the Caribbean, and in of most of Africa about 2.5 billion people still rely in wood, dried animal manure or other bio-mass energy for cooking, heating, or lighting. Another 500 million use coal that produces poor quality energy for cooking. In all, some 3 billion people, almost half the population of the world, at present mostly rely on an energy system that has failed to meet even the most basic human needs.

As developing countries have the fastest population growth, energy poverty is sure to become one of the most severe problems of the next several decades. Energy poverty is simply a measure of the generally poor economic conditions the developing world faces. Like water and food, energy is a source that is in chronic short supply. But because energy is so interconnected with almost all other aspects of life, energy poverty tends to play a more significant and central role, one that creates a ripple effect through a developing economy, and has an inordinate impact on living standards, which could all but destroy a population's efforts to overcome poverty.

It has been proved beyond any doubt that even a tiny improvement in the level of energy services tends to raise living standards remarkably. Replacing wood-fired cooking stoves with kerosene stoves means that families that spent hours and days gathering wood or dung are now able to devote that time to earning money, producing more food, and can even venture to get an education. As a result, a lot of stresses will disappear and for the poor, and the world will be fundamentally improved.

For the millions of poor we are talking about, accessing solar energy still remains a very distant dream. More benefits flow when communities are able to switch from bio-mass or liquid fuels to electricity. Electricity solves many indoor air problems and virtually eliminates the need to gather fuel. It provides adequate indoor lighting, extending the day for education and other social activities. If electricity is available, people can install basic appliances which would dramatically improve food preparation and safely. Water pumps, would make possible supply of pure and fresh drinking water, a huge benefit for communities now decimated by water-borne illness. Electricity powers irrigation pumps that improve irrigation and crop fields. Electricity powers radios and telephones, including cellular mobile phones, and this could raise living standards immensely.

With electricity, three billion poor people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, who are now trapped in a poverty-ridden existence could begin to move forward towards a life with honour and dignity. If we are determined to solve the energy problem of the poor, then we can begin to solve other problems such as poverty and underdevelopment and employment.

Even more amazing is how little extra energy is required to produce improvement in living standards. By one estimate, the amount of electricity needed to bring the entire developing world up to minimum energy standards would be around one thousand tera watt-hours or roughly the amount of electricity used by the United States.

What can be done
There are compelling arguments for decisive action to be taken to accelerate the process of energy development in poor countries. Developing countries are unlikely to see their incomes and living standard increase without a concommitment increase in their use of modern energy services. If the vicious circle of energy poverty and human under-development has to be broken, governments must act to improve the availability and affordability of modern energy services, especially electricity.

Sustainable energy systems
Achieving a truly sustainable energy system will call for technological breakthroughs that would alter radically how we produce and use energy. Government must act decisively to accelerate process to break the vicious circle of energy poverty and human under-development in the world's poorest countries. The United Nation's Development Programme defines human development as the creation of an environment in which people can realise their full potential and lead productive, creative lives, in line with their needs and interests. Energy sustainability requires meeting human energy needs upon which economic development depends, while protecting the environment and improving social conditions. No matter how we define "sustainable" development, most current systems of energy supply and use are clearly not sustainable in economic, environmental or social terms. In practice sustainable development is about finding acceptable trade-offs between economic, environmental and social goals.

Achieving the MDGs
The United Nation's Millennium Development Goals include halving the proportion of the world's people living on less than $1 a day by 2015. The number of people without electricity in 2015 will remain almost the same as today and it is highly unlikely that the UN poverty-reduction target will be achieved unless access to electricity can be provided to another half a billion people by 2015. This would require investments of about $200 billion.

The achievement of the MDG would certainly require a substantial reduction in the use of traditional bio-mass for cooking and heating. The amount of bio-mass consumption is usually a function of how poor a country is and of relative availability of commercial and non-commercial fuels. The number of people relying almost entirely on traditional bio-mass for cooking and heating will increase from 2.4 billion in 2004 to about 2.55 billion in 2015. If the MDG targets of poverty reduction are to be met, the numbers would need to be reduced to below 1.85 billion. To accomplish this, governments, particularly those of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and to a large extent China and India, would need to take new measures to extend use of modern cooking and heating fuels to more than 700 million people from 2004 to 2015.

There is an implicit level of energy development that underlies each level of human development, yet energy development is never identical per se to the poverty indices, which focus on such basic human needs as food, water, health, and education. Energy is a factor in procuring each of these needs, but it is not fully captured by measuring them. Energy poverty is not adequately indicated by non-energy indicators. This has important implications for policy-making. Since energy underlines all economic activity, human development is severely impeded by a lack of energy infrastructure. An index of energy development would introduce an important element in understanding the drivers of human development and identifying the policies that can achieve it.

Khondaker Muzammel Huq is a former General Manager, Grameen Bank and a former senior research scholar at Oxford University.