The Foundation's Head of Research & Development, Dr Tara Shine gave a presentation to a meeting of the G20 Development Working Group on 4th May 2012 in Los Cabos in Mexico. Dr Shine gave the presentation entitled ‘Access to Sustainable Energy for All.
Dr Shine gave the presentation entitled Access to Sustainable Energy for All – A Climate Justice Approach to the second working session of the G20 Development Working Group which met from 3-5 May. Representatives from the Gates Foundation and the One Campaign also presented to the meeting. The final development issue recommendations from the Working Group meetings will be presented to the G20 Leaders Summit in June.
During the presentation, Dr Shine said 1.3 billion people lack access to electricity and 2.7 billion rely on biomass for cooking and heating. Most of these people live on less than US$2 per day and the poorest pay most for energy with 15-30 per cent of their household income being spent on kerosene.
She said that social protection systems that target the poorest and most vulnerable in society could deliver access to sustainable energy at scale. The infrastructure exists with established and trusted systems for transferring resources, monitoring results and ensuring accountability. Dr Shine said development is not possible without energy and sustainable development is not possible without access to clean, affordable, sustainable energy.
In March this year, the Foundation convened 21 experts from the fields of social protection, access to energy and climate finance at the Rockefeller Brothers Pocantico Center in New York to explore the potential for social protection systems to act as a vehicle for scaling up access to energy for the poorest.
Dr Shine challenged the G20 to link the work of the Development Working Group on social protection to work on green growth to meet the objective of inclusive green growth and make progress on access to sustainable energy for all before 2030.
Click Play below to view Dr Shine’s complete presentation:
Related:
Meeting the Energy Needs of the Poorest – this position paper by the Foundation was circulated at the meeting.