The challenge for the developmentcommunity is to exploit the links between energy and povertyto combat global poverty. The human scale of this challengeis huge. Today, 1.6 billion people lack access toelectricity and 2.4 billion rely on traditional biomass forcooking and heating. Indoor air pollution is among leadingcauses of illness and death in developing countries. Itleads to 2 million premature deaths a year. In 2004, therichest 20 percent of the world s population consume 58percent of total energy, while the poorest 20 percentconsume less than 4 percent. The majority of thoseunderserved are the poor in Sub-Saharan Africa and SouthAsia. With increasing populations, 25 years from now,business-as-usual energy scenarios project that even afteran expenditure of 16 trillion US dollars on energyinvestments of which half will be in developing countries,1.4 billion people will still lack access to electricity.This is a reduction of only 200 million people from today.Over 2.6 billion people in developing countries willcontinue to rely on traditional forms of biomass for cookingand heating in 2030, even more than today. This scenarioexpects renewable energy share to increase from 2 percent to3 percent between 2000 and 2030.Under this scenario, by2030, the more than doubling of coal, oil and gasconsumption will lead to increases in greenhouse gasemissions from the energy sector. The impacts will affectthe developing countries the most, and hence rendering thepoor more vulnerable. Projected impacts are increased deathsand risk of infectious disease epidemics; increased floods,mudslides and coastal and soil erosion; increased propertyand infrastructure damage; decreased crops, higher cropdamages and a general drop in agricultural productivity.
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