“energy Poverty And Access To Gas In Europe” – About 3 billion people in the world do not have access to modern energy sources to cook and heat their homes. They suffer from air pollution as a consequence and millions die every year.
The lack of access to modern energy sources makes people live in poverty. No electricity means no refrigeration of food, no washing machine, and no light at night.
“energy Poverty And Access To Gas In Europe”
If you don’t have artificial light, your day is over at sunset. That’s why the students in this photo are on the street: they had to find a place under a street light to do their homework. It’s a photo that shows both the determination of those born into poverty, but also the steep odds they have to work against.
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Energy poverty is so common you can see it from space. In sub-Saharan Africa, 43% of the population does not have access to electricity. The poorest regions in the world are dark at night, as the satellite image shows.
But to understand one of the biggest problems in the world that comes with energy poverty, we need to zoom in on what is happening in households around the world. More specifically, we need to take a look at the kitchens of the world. In high income countries, people use electricity or gas to cook a meal. But 40% of the world does not have access to these clean, modern energy sources for cooking. What do they rely on instead?
The visualization below is the response of the World Health Organization.3 The so-called ‘Energy Ladder’ shows the dominant sources of household energy at different income levels. From very low income on the left to high income on the right.
The poorest households burn wood and other biomass, such as crop waste and dried dung. Those who can afford it, cook and heat with charcoal or coal. Burning these solid fuels on open fires or simple stoves fills the room with smoke and toxic chemicals. These traditional energy sources expose those in the household – often women and children – to pollution levels that are
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Millions die from diseases caused by indoor air pollution. Chronic exposure to pollution in the home leads to pneumonia, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and lung cancer.5 It is the leading risk factor of burns, 6 increases the risk of cataracts, 7 and it affects the health of babies before they are born and leads to to a higher rate of deaths.8
Global estimates of how many people die from air pollution vary. We need more data on the pollution levels people are exposed to; and better research on how this exposure affects people’s health. The major studies
However, all agree that the death toll is extremely high. The IHME estimates that 2.3 million people die each year from indoor air pollution. The WHO estimates that the death toll is significantly higher: 3.8 million annual deaths.9
To put this in perspective, the annual death toll from HIV/AIDS is about 1 million and homicides total about 400,000 worldwide.10
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The effects of indoor air pollution are not limited to the household. As air escapes the home, indoor pollution is also one of the most important sources of
Air pollution that kills millions more every year. We discuss this in our post on outdoor air pollution.
Humanity has suffered and died from air pollution for thousands of years. As the name “traditional” fuels suggests, these were the sources our ancestors relied on in pre-modern times.
The use of fire by man goes back one and a half million years.11 It warmed and protected our ancestors; it allows them to hunt and cook. But it also always had the negative side effect of polluting the air they breathed. The impact of human air pollution is documented in the remains of hunter-gatherers who lived in caves (near modern Tel Aviv) about 400,000 years ago. to roast meat. High levels of air pollution have also been documented in preserved lung tissue from Egyptian mummies.13
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Accounts of air pollution—indoors and outdoors—are common in the ancient world. The inhabitants of ancient Rome referred to the periods in which their city was shrouded in thick smoke
(“heavy sky”). After leaving Rome, the philosopher and statesman Seneca wrote in a letter in AD 61:
“I expect you will be eager to hear what effect this decision of mine to leave has had on my health?
Well, no sooner had I left the oppressive atmosphere of the city and that smell of smoking cookers, which, together with a cloud of ashes, emitted all the poisonous fumes which they had collected in their interior when they began, as I noticed the change in my condition suddenly.
Pdf) Energy Poverty
You can imagine how much stronger I felt after reaching my vines! I’ve been wading into my food quite a bit – talking about animals just out on spring grass! So now I’m back to my old self.
That feeling of listlessness, of being physically ill and mentally inefficient, did not last. I’m starting to come to a whole heart.”
The premodern energy systems that bothered Seneca are a thing of the past for those living in rich countries today.
But as the ‘energy ladder’ says, billions in low- and middle-income countries still don’t have access to clean fuels. The two charts here show that.
The Energy Poverty And Equity Explorer
I show here two charts so that we can compare what these two different measures of energy poverty tell us about the world. If you compare the data country by country, you will find that the share that has access to electricity is generally much higher than the share that has access to clean cooking fuel. We can use electricity to cook, so why wouldn’t access to electricity automatically mean people have access to clean cooking technology?
It tells us that the cut-off for what it means to have “access to electricity” in these international statistics is very low.15 Having access to electricity means that a household can use it for basic purposes – like a little light at night or for to load. a mobile phone – but may not be able to afford electricity for energy-intensive purposes, such as cooking. A family that can charge a mobile phone often still relies on cheaper fuels, especially wood, for cooking.
The same was true in today’s richest countries in the past. In pre-war London, 65% of households had access to electricity, but only 11% had it for cooking; the majority still relied on wood and coal.16
Globally, 40% do not have access to clean fuel for cooking. Four out of ten people – that is
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Of all wood extracted from forests is used to produce energy, mostly for cooking and heating.17 On the African continent, reliance on wood as fuel is the single most important driver of forest degradation.18 In addition to the destruction of the natural environment, the ‘Reliance on firewood also contributes between 2 and 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions.19
The fact that poor people rely on wood as an energy source is one of the most important reasons why deforestation in poor countries is going so fast – and why, on the other hand, the forests in richer countries tend to grow in size.20
The modernization of the energy system – the transition to secure carbon sources – is not only key to improving the health of billions of people in the world, but also to protecting the environment around us.
Indoor air pollution is a worldwide problem that is very much solvable. The benefits are especially great for women, who not only have the greatest health consequences, but are also mainly responsible for collecting and carrying the wood and biomass into the house.21
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The world solves this problem. We see this in the graph. Strong economic growth has made people around the world richer, and the death rate from air pollution has dropped.
However, it is still a massive problem. The map next to it makes this clear. In many countries this very solvable problem is still responsible for over 5% of all deaths.
This is one of the many reasons why growth and electrification are so important to people’s well-being and health.
But economic growth is often slow and with 3 billion people in energy poverty it is still a
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Yes, even with lower incomes it is possible to move away from the most polluting fuel sources.24 China has focused on replacing the coal stoves that many have relied on until recently and has made dramatic reductions in household air pollution. reached. India has made progress by expanding access to clean fuels—especially liquefied petroleum gas.
For many who live in places where modern fuels are not yet available, the so-called “improved cooking stove” can be an intermediate step towards clean cooking. Good stoves burn fuel more efficiently and are therefore both more environmentally friendly and keep the air in the home cleaner.
Berkouwer and Dean (2019) studied the use of such ovens in Kenya in a randomized
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