In layman terms energy poverty refers to lack of access to electricity, heating or other forms of power. As per Wikipedia, it often refers to the situation of the masses in the developing and the emerging world, living a low quality of life due to the lack of access to energy.

Access to energy is fundamental to improving quality of life and is a key imperative for economic development — none can deny. Access to energy is definitely a pre-requisite for growth and development. Affluent and developed nations and their masses have access to energy; their per capita consumption of energy is noticeably higher than that of the developing world. The linkage between energy affluence, growth and development cannot therefore be overstated.

The world seems divided into the haves and the have-nots in the real sense. Almost 2 billion people are faced with energy deficit — of one kind or the other. There are many in this world, who simply don’t have access to energy — living still in a primitive age in the real sense. The gap between the per capita energy consumption of the twos sides of this energy divide is growing and is generating alarm all around. The gap is horrendous. The city of New York, for instance, with 8 million habitants today uses the same amount of electricity as that of the Sub-Saharan Africa which has a population of about 800 million.

This means that electricity consumption per capita in NYC is more than 6,000 Kwh/person (exactly 6,024) while it is only 63 kwh/person in Sub Saharan Africa. This ratio is approaching 1:100. Is this acceptable? And then there are other places, in the emerging economies of today, that face a stark and dark reality. Many in these developing and emerging economies, populous nations such as India and Pakistan, are faced with this reality.

A majority amongst them don’t have access to energy — and this basically refers to electric bulbs and fans. India illustrates the magnitude of these differences. The Indian population, representing almost 17 percent of the world population, consumes only 4 percent of the planet’s energy. In 2005, 20 percent of the population still had no access to electricity.

This is emerging as a major issue today — at the global stage. And the issue is not only to provide all these energy deprived people with enough, uninterrupted energy; the fact remains that the energy available to them should be affordable as well.

The rising electricity and energy cost is a major obstacle in this direction — and the word cannot and should not remain oblivious to it. Pierre Gadonneix, the president of the World Energy Council (WEC), also conceded it during an informal chat in Montreal recently. This divide is now one of the major concerns that the energy world is faced with today and could trigger upheavals in many societies too — with serious implication indeed — most admit and agree. 

André Caillé, WEC’s former chairman, underlines the vicious cycle that afflicts populations in developing countries: “lack of access to energy leads to poverty and poverty leads to lack of access to adequate health care,” he pointed out during the recently held WEC moot. “Not only must energy be more accessible, it must also be more affordable. If 30 percent of the world population is to achieve North American living standards, the energy supply must be tripled.”

Energy poverty is now coming on center stage. There is a growing realization all around that while the world definitely needs to work on alternatives, to enhance energy security, yet the immediate needs of the emerging world cannot be overlooked.

On Sept. 21, IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka presented early results from the energy poverty chapter of the upcoming IEA World Energy Outlook 2010 at a dinner hosted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to promote universal energy access. The report “Ending Energy Poverty: How to make modern energy access universal”, was presented on the sidelines of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Summit at the UN Headquarters in New York.

In April, the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change called for a global campaign for universal access to modern energy services. The goal of the event was to present the need for such a campaign and to support national targets, public-private partnerships, financing and policies and measures.

The report underlines that over 20 percent of the global population — 1.4 billion people — lack access to electricity. Some 40 percent of the global population — 2.7 billion people — rely today on the traditional use of biomass for cooking. Some 1.2 billion people, equivalent to China’s population, would still have no electricity by 2030 if governments made no change to existing policies, the report underlined.

It added that $36 billion per year of investments are required to enable the world’s 1 billion energy-starved people to access energy supplies at home by 2030. And this represented 3 percent of global energy investments projected by the agency to 2030.

Lack of access to modern energy services is a serious hindrance to economic and social emancipation and must be overcome if the UN MDGs are to be achieved. Worse, without additional dedicated policies, the problem will persist and even deepen in the longer term.

Even at the recently held World Energy Congress in Montreal, the message was clear: With nearly two billion people around the world having inadequate access to energy, the energy world has a responsibility to produce simple, reliable solutions to the problem and to do so as soon as possible.

The road to development is paved with fossil fuel — it is often said — and not without reason. The age-old phrase seems to be holding ground for at least some more decades to come, as the world struggles to come to grips with the issue of energy poverty.

Energy poverty is a time bomb — ready to explode — unless the energy fraternity sits down to resolve it — with all the ingenuity and sincerity at its disposal.