In article like this from the World Economic Forum, the writers and researchers try really hard to not confront the fact that if you are not solving energy poverty by utilising ALL possible energy sources, you are actually contributing to energy poverty, all in the name of far-off, poorly understood and highly uncertain climate scenarios, all of which will be confronted by more technologically advanced, wealthy and (hopefully) knowledgeable societies. Note how hard they try to avoid the implications of the key quote below where eradicating global poverty must be preceded by efforts to end energy poverty, which at least is stated nice and clearly. Yet the ridiculous, fairy tale concepts of recovering “better” and achieving “sustainable energy for all” is just a few lines away and clearly the focus of the feel-good tone of the article. Lip service to energy poverty once again….
KEY QUOTE:
“Some staggering figures highlight the massive regional inequalities as many people remain energy poor. Excluding South Africa, the remaining 1 billion people in 48 Sub-Saharan African countries are serviced by a power generating capacity of just 81 gigawatts. For comparison, this is roughly the same as the installed capacity in Germany which services about 83 million people. It is important to pay attention to these metrics as evidence suggests a strong correlation between electric power consumption per capita and gross national income per capita. As such, the aim of leaving no one behind and eradicating global poverty must be preceded by intentional efforts to end energy poverty.”
SOURCE:
Primate v. Climate 