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By Ulrich Bang, Sustainable Energy Advisor PECCN Link to article: Poverty alleviation and access to sustainable energy services
Millions of people around the world will show their support for climate action on Saturday, March 27, by turning off their lights during the global Earth Hour campaign. Many of us at CARE International, a global humanitarian organization, will join in the action in solidarity for the need to mitigate energy use to reduce climate change impacts, especially on poor people. At the same time, the action of plunging into darkness will also serve to remind us that, in the developing world, our main goal in poverty alleviation is often to keep the lights on, or to get them turned on in the first place. Of the 6.5 billion people on the planet, the World Bank* estimates that roughly 1.7 billion people live without electricity. The lack is most acute in Sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 500 million people have no modern energy. Just two percent of those living in rural areas have access to electricity. Because energy underlies most economic activity, the lack of it helps keep poor people in poverty. Women and children at home are the most impacted because poor households often do not have the resources to obtain cleaner, more efficient fuels and appliances. According to the World Health Organization,** indoor air pollution – generated largely by inefficient and poorly ventilated stoves burning biomass fuels such as wood, crop waste and dung, or coal – is responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.6 million people annually. That'sone death every 20 seconds.
And because young children are often carried on their mother's back or kept close to the warm hearth, infants often spend many hours breathing indoor smoke during their first year of life when their developing airways make them particularly vulnerable to hazardous pollutants. As a result, 56 percent of all indoor air pollution-attributable deaths occur in children under five years of age. These statistics are alarming, and represent individuals around the world whose lives could easily be improved by access to light through sustainable energy. Turning on the lights can extend their working day, provide more light for study and adult literacy classes, reduce time and cost to collect fuel, and increase community activities. Knowing this, when you turn off your lights for Earth Hour on Saturday, use the darkness as a reminder: while it is necessary to make wise energy choices at home; sustainable energy solutions are vital for poor people around the world. Let’s get their lights turned on. |
