Linkages between energy use and environmental quality have always been apparent, from the deforestation caused by fuelwood use even in early societies to the high levels of local air and water pollution that have commonly accompanied the early phases of industrialization. In recent decades, advances in scientific understanding and in monitoring and measurement capabilities have brought increased awareness of the more subtle environmental and human-health effects associated with energy production, conversion, and use. Fossil-fuel combustion is now known to be responsible for substantial emissions of air pollutants—including sulfur, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, and soot—that play a major role in the formation of fine particulate matter, ground-level ozone, and acid rain; energy use is also a major contributor to the release of long-lived heavy metals, such as lead and mercury, and other hazardous materials into the environment. Energy-related air pollution (including poor indoor air quality from the use of solid fuels for cooking and heating) not only creates substantial public health risks, especially where emission controls are limited or nonexistent, it harms ecosystems, degrades materials and structures, and impairs agricultural productivity. In addition, the extraction, transport, and processing of primary energy sources such as coal, oil, and uranium are associated with a variety of damages or risks to land, water, and ecosystems while the wastes generated by some fuel cycles—notably nuclear electricity production—present additional disposal issues.
Although the most obvious environmental impacts from energy production and use have always been local, significant impacts—including the long-range transport of certain pollutants in the atmosphere—are now known to occur on regional, continental, and even transcontinental scales. And at a global level, climate change is emerging as the most consequential and most difficult energy-environment linkage of all. The production and use of energy contributes more than any other human activity to the change in radiative forcing that is currently occurring in the atmosphere; in fact, fossil-fuel combustion alone currently accounts for well over half of total greenhouse gas emissions worldwide (after accounting for different gases’ carbon dioxide equivalent warming potential). Since the dawn of the industrial era, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased by about 40 percent; going forward, trends in energy production, conversion, and use—more than any other factor within human control—are likely to determine how quickly those levels continue to rise, and how far. The precise implications of the current trajectory remain unknown, but there is less and less doubt that the risks are large and more and more evidence that human-induced global warming is already underway. In its recent, Fourth Assessment report, for example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that evidence for the warming of the Earth’s climate system was now ‘unequivocal’ and identified a number of potential adverse impacts associated with continued warming, including increased risks to coasts, ecosystems, fresh-water resources, and human health (IPCC, 2007a: p. 5; and 2007b) . In this context, making the transition to lower-carbon energy options is widely acknowledged as a central imperative in the effort to reduce climate-change risks.
Another issue that will continue to dominate regional, national, and international energy policy debates over the next several decades is energy security. Defined as access to adequate supplies of energy when needed, in the form needed, and at affordable prices, energy security remains a central priority for all nations concerned with promoting healthy economic growth and maintaining internal as well as external stability. In the near to medium term, energy security concerns are almost certain to focus on oil and, to a lesser extent, on natural gas. As demand for these resources grows and as reserves of relatively cheap and readily accessible supplies decline in many parts of the world, the potential for supply disruptions, trade conflicts, and price shocks is likely to increase. Already, there is concern that the current environment of tight supplies and high and volatile prices is exacerbating trade imbalances, slowing global economic growth, and directly or indirectly complicating efforts to promote international peace and security. The problem is particularly acute for many developing countries that devote a large fraction of their foreign exchange earnings to oil imports, thus reducing the resources available to support investments needed for economic growth and social development.
Box 1.1 Energy and the Millennium Development Goals
Energy services can play a variety of direct and indirect roles in helping to achieve the Millennium Development Goals:
To halve extreme poverty. Access to energy services facilitates economic development – micro-enterprise, livelihood activities beyond daylight hours, locally owned businesses, which will create employment – and assists in bridging the ‘digital divide. ’
To reduce hunger and improve access to safe drinking water. Energy services can improve access to pumped drinking water and provide fuel for cooking the 95 percent of staple foods that need cooking before they can be eaten.
To reduce child and maternal mortality; and to reduce diseases. Energy is a key component of a functioning health system, contributing, for example, to lighting operating theatres, refrigerating vaccines and other medicines, sterilizing equipment, and providing transport to health clinics.
To achieve universal primary education, and to promote gender equality and empowerment of women. Energy services reduce the time spent by women and children (especially girls) on basic survival activities (gathering firewood, fetching water, cooking, etc.); lighting permits home study, increases security, and enables the use of educational media and communications in schools, including information and communication technologies.
To ensure environmental sustainability. Improved energy efficiency and use of cleaner alternatives can help to achieve sustainable use of natural resources, as well as reduce emissions, which protects the local and global environment.
Providing the energy services needed to sustain economic growth and, conversely, avoiding a situation where lack of access to such services constrains growth and development, remains a central policy objective for all nations, and an especially important challenge for developing nations given the substantial resource and capital investments that will be required. Within that larger context, a third important set of issues (in addition to the environmental and energy-security issues noted above) concerns the specific linkages between access to energy services, poverty alleviation, and human development. These linkages have recently drawn increased international attention and were a major focus of the 2002 World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, which recognized the importance of expanded access to reliable and affordable energy services as a prerequisite for achieving the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals. These linkages are discussed in detail in other reports (notably in the 2000 and 2004 World Energy Assessments undertaken by the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and World Energy Council) and summarized in Box 1.1 (DFID, 2002).
In brief, substantial inequalities in access to energy services now exist, not only between countries but between populations within the same country and even between households within the same town or village. In many developing countries, a small elite uses energy in much the same way as in the industrialized world, while most of the rest of the population relies on traditional, often poor-quality and highly polluting forms of energy. It is estimated that today roughly 2.4 billion people use charcoal, firewood, agricultural residues, or dung as their primary cooking fuel, while some 1.6 billion people worldwide live without electricity. Without access to affordable, basic labor-saving devices or adequate lighting and compelled to spend hours each day gathering fuel and water, vast numbers of people, especially women and girls, are deprived of economic and educational opportunities; in addition, millions are exposed to substantial health risks from indoor air pollution caused by traditional cooking fuels. The challenge of expanding access to energy services revolves primarily around issues of social equity and distribution—the fundamental problem is not one of inadequate global resources or of a lack of available technologies. Addressing the basic energy needs of the world’s poor is clearly central to the larger goal of sustainable development and must be a top priority for developing countries in the years ahead if some dent is to be made in reducing current inequities.
