Earth & Sky

Billions on Earth never flip a light switch to "on"

Rajendra Pachauri says they need modern forms of energy.

Of more than 6 billion people on Earth today, 2 billion – or one in three – lack access to modern forms of energy. Rajendra Pachauri is Director–General of The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, India. Earth & Sky’s Marc Airhart spoke to him in March, 2006.

Airhart: How is energy central to problems such as poverty or lack of health care?

Pachauri: Well, you see if you look at poor people living in rural areas in the developing world, where do they get their basic fuel needs met? They have to go out and pluck twigs and leaves. They are having to make do with all kinds of substitutes, including animal dung and agricultural residue. And these are very poor quality forms of fuels which are burned in badly designed stoves and in dwellings which in any way are nothing more than little huts with no ventilation. The people are exposed to an excessive amount of intake of emissions from these devices.

So, there are two problems as a result. Firstly, women have to spend much of their time collecting fuel wood to cook two square meals a day in the home. Now that’s clearly something that affects our ability to get rid of poverty.

And the second problem is that use of these fuels has health implications that are extremely serious. It impacts poverty very directly.

Then of course if you look at health care, if you want to distribute vaccines, medicines, and everything that modern medicine can provide to rural areas, you can’t even store these vaccines because there’s no energy available. You need refrigeration for most vaccines and for most medicines that we take for granted in the developed world. So you need sources of energy in rural areas if you want to spread health care.

Airhart: What about education?

Pachauri: The same applies for education, you can’t carry out any form of education if children can’t do homework in the evening, there’s no lighting in their homes. Or if they sit by a lantern using kerosene oil, the quality of light is so poor that they’ll probably ruin their eyes.

Airhart: Dr. Pachauri, in 2000, world leaders agreed to the so–called Millennium Development Goals. They agreed to work towards cutting poverty, hunger and infectious disease, and to help spread education, health care, environmental sustainability and gender equality. You’ve said that energy is a critical issue that wasn’t addressed in setting these goals. Can you tell me more about that?

Pachauri: Almost every activity that’s involved in the Millennium Development Goals requires some provision of energy. And unfortunately, this has been completely left out.

For a variety of reasons, energy was not included as a Millennium Development Goal in the 2002 Johannesburg Summit, the 2000 Millennium Summit, and earlier. But none of these goals can be met unless you focus on the problem of energy. And there’s a large number of people – perhaps 2 billion people on the Earth – who don’t have access to modern forms of energy, such as electricity and gas for heating and cooking. And that’s a serious limitation on your ability to meet any of the other Millennium Development Goals.

Airhart: So, what would you like to see happen?

Pachauri: Governments have to fill up the gap. And of course, at the grassroots level, you need to create models of institutional success that should be highlighted and that could be replicated in other parts of the world that don’t have that benefit.

Airhart: When you say governments should fill in the gap, what do you mean? More money?

Pachauri: No. I don’t think so. I think you certainly need much better targeting of government revenues themselves and perhaps creating a level playing field whereby business would also enter into these areas. Often you need just the right kind of incentives and disincentives to make it attractive to go into these areas.

For example, in some villages, you could provide some low interest financing for someone who wants to set up an enterprise to use local resources efficiently and supply these to villagers. So you could think in terms of public/private partnerships, with institutional roles clarified properly and these are the kinds of institutions you need at the local or grassroots level.

I’m not at all suggesting that this requires money from the developed to the developing countries, although that would certainly help accelerate whatever we want to achieve. But this has to be an all–around effort, and it has to be an effort that’s evident vertically from the international to the national to the local level with resources directed in the right manner at each of these levels.

Airhart: Thank you, Dr. Pachauri.