ENERGY FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Statement by JoAnne DiSano to the OPEC Symposium, 15-16 November 2007 Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen….. I would like to begin by thanking the Government of Saudi Arabia for inviting me to participate in this Symposium.
I am very pleased to have the opportunity to address this august group. I welcome the chance to share my thoughts, impressions and insights after having spent more than nine years service to the United Nations as Director of the Division for Sustainable Development.
These were significant years since energy, so vital to our existence was considered a number of times by the United Nations in the context of sustainable development. Most recently, I had the honor of working very closely with HE Minister Al-Attiya of Qatar on preparations for and during the 15th session of the Commission on Sustainable Development in which many of you participated. The Commission also benefited from OPEC’s active involvement on CSD Panels and discussions, and in sharing information and providing expertise on energy.
As many of you know, the Rio Summit in 1992 avoided taking decisions on energy. In fact, it took the Commission on Sustainable Development, established to follow up on the Rio decisions, nine years to examine energy issues. In 2001 the Commission identified key energy issues that contribute to sustainable development, and its decision is still very relevant today. That decision provides the basic definition of energy within the framework of sustainable development and the basis for all energywork undertaken by the United Nations. Energy was also debated at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 and again this past year at the 15th session of the Commission on Sustainable Development along with related themes of industrial development, climate change, and air pollution. Discussions at CSD15 have pointed the way for further work on energy for sustainable development.
Energy for Sustainable Development
Some might ask, why would the United Nations deliberate on energy, and what is the relationship between energy and sustainable development? I would answer very simply. Sustainable development involves the integration of economic development, social development and environment protection. Given this, energy’s critical role becomes obvious as it is absolutely essential for economic and social development but its use can have adverse environmental impacts.
Energy is crucial for achieving sustainable development goals since it is the driver of economic growth and is fundamental for the provision of basic human services. Energy is critically essential for developing countries striving to achieve socio-economic development. We need energy for our industries, for efficient transportation systems and for heating/cooling our homes and producing electricity. Raising standards of living requires meeting basic cooking and heating needs with modern energy services. But energy use comes with environmental impacts, at the local, regional and global levels. We have successfully minimized some of these impacts, but we are still working on solving many of the more intractable problems.
Consequently, it is common sense to consider energy within the context of sustainable development. We need to find ways of minimizing the environmental impacts of our energy use while acknowledging the critical role of energy in economic growth and social well-being. Keep in mind that in considering energy in the context of sustainable development, one must take a holistic and integrated approach. We strive to integrate economic, social and environmental measures and policies to achieve the goal of sustainable development.
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15th Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development
CSD 15 provided a venue for governments, civil society, experts and the private sector to share information, highlight best practices and focus on success stories. At CSD-15 we reviewed what has worked and what hasn’t worked and why. Achievements since 2002 includes marked, if uneven, global progress in increasing electrification rates and reducing biomass fuel dependence; elimination of lead from gasoline by Sub-Saharan African countries; cooperation to eliminate substances that deplete the ozone layer; entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; implementation of the Clean Development Mechanism; improvements in energy efficiency and increased use of cleaner technologies including advanced fossil fuel technologies; and a resurgent interest in funding energy access projects, especially in the electricity sector.
Cleaner energy technologies, energy efficiency, financing Discussions at CSD-15 on energy for sustainable development pointed the way for: 1. Mobilizing financial resources for energy efficiency, cleaner fossil fuels and other energy sources; 2. Creating a positive investment climate at all levels to attract private capital for energy projects; 3. Encouraging transfer and dissemination of cleaner energy technologies, including advanced, cleaner fossil fuel technologies; 4. Encouraging the development of carbon capture and storage technologies; 5. Increasing investments and strengthening public/private partnerships in research and development (R&D) to develop new, advanced energy technologies,
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including cleaner fossil fuel technologies such as carbon capture and storage technologies; 6. Supporting and promoting the use of cleaner liquid and gaseous fossil fuels including through creating appropriate investment conditions for LNG and gas-to-liquid (GTL) trade and to develop the global LNG/GTL market to increase access to cleaner forms of fossil fuel energy; 7. Promoting foreign direct investment for the development of energy resources including fossil fuels, sustainable production and use of biofuels and other renewable sources of energy; 8. Supporting the establishment and further development of energy service companies through capacity building at the national level; and 9. Encouraging international financial institutions to increase their funding in developing countries to improve energy efficiency in local and national electricity grids. Many of you are intimately involved in taking action on these areas in your daily work. So I won’t dwell on the importance of cleaner and advanced energy technologies and the necessity of ensuring that these technologies are transferred to developing countries. I will not accentuate the importance of international cooperation and of working in partnerships with governments, the private sector, local authorities and interested community groups. Instead, I will turn to another major focus of energy for sustainable development – the issue of energy access for the poor.
Access to modern energy services As many as 2.4 billion people—that is about half of all households and 90 per cent of rural households—today lack access to modern energy services for cooking and heating. They have to rely instead on traditional, non-commercial energy sources, which contribute to indoor air pollution and poor health. I need not remind you how difficult life is for those lacking energy access. Many of these people are living on less than
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1 dollar per day, cooking indoors on poorly ventilated and inefficient stoves, spending several hours each day gathering firewood, and living with inadequate lighting, no refrigeration and few labour-saving devices. Moreover, limited access to energy also means limited telecommunications services, few employment opportunities and no modern health care. Cooking with fuel wood, cow dung and crop residues causes respiratory problems especially for women and children who inhale smoke from the cooking fires, and worsening environmental conditions as local environments are degraded for firewood. It is estimated that 130 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live in areas where fuel wood consumption outpaces the natural regenerative capacity of the forests. Time spent gathering firewood often represents lost opportunity for schooling and productive employment. In rural Kenya, for example, some women spend 20 to 24 hours per week collecting branches, cow dung and crop residue to use as fuel. The widespread lack of access to modern energy services, in particular in Sub-Saharan Africa and in South Asia, perpetuates poverty. It deprives the poor from the fulfillment of their right to development and from living a life with human dignity.
The link between access to modern energy services and poverty alleviation is now widely acknowledged, thanks in part to CSD-15 activities. Some CSD Partnerships,
which bring together a variety of actors, including the private sector, experts, NGOs and governments, to solve specific sustainable development problems, have focused on improving energy access by the poor. These Partnerships reported some successes in enhancing local capacities for energy service provision. Also, at the request of Minister Al-Attiyah, a ―matrix of activities‖ was developed for CSD-15 that highlighted best practices and success stories worldwide. The matrix included many successes with regard to energy access and has allowed for networking for those interested in emulating them.
CSD-15 pointed to the urgent need for concrete action on the ground. Indeed, how developing countries meet the challenge of providing greater access to energy for
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the poor still poses a formidable challenge. We know that with improving incomes, and subject to affordable prices and availability, people tend to ―climb up the energy ladder‖. They switch to more convenient and more efficient cooking and heating fuels, initially typically to charcoal and kerosene, and finally to LPG, natural gas or eventually electricity. Many developing countries, including China, India, Kenya and many other African developing countries have launched programs to disseminate fuel-efficient cookstoves, and use modern fuels such as LPG, for cooking.
Electricity is a major area of focus of commercial energy accessibility for economic development. Most projections for the next twenty years assume a gradually declining, but continuously positive, rate of population growth, rapid urbanization, as well as continuing economic growth. These trends underlie the expected increases in demand for oil, gas and commercial energy services, including electricity. Expanding the urgently necessary public energy and electricity infrastructure remains an increasingly important responsibility of the public sector policy decision makers, who will need to more effectively mobilize public and private sector resources and skills for investments in energy infrastructure, including oil, gas and commercial energy services.
Delegations at CSD-15 were quite aware that the right solution in one country may not work in another – owing to varying economic, social, cultural and institutional characteristics found among countries, and even among regions of the same country. Additional sharing of experiences in successful public-private partnerships in key development areas, such as rural electrification, offers a useful opportunity for SouthSouth cooperation which has not yet been sufficiently exploited. CSD-15 acknowledged that we must facilitate the transition from traditional, noncommercial energy sources to modern, commercially-traded sources. Moreover, despite progress in extending national electricity grids and installing decentralized systems, 1.6 billion people still lack access to electricity. A special concern for sub-Saharan Africa was highlighted as the region with the world’s lowest energy access rates.
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Role of OPEC OPEC has a special role to play with regard to energy for sustainable development. As the pre-eminent organization of oil producers you are in the extraordinary position to take on-the-ground action to ensure the uptake of cleaner energy technologies, especially those on the edge of commercial viability such as carbon capture and storage. And you have the opportunity to ensure that some attainable goals are realized – such as the elimination of gas flaring. Although I know that this is easier said than done, it is an important sustainable development goal, since effective solutions such as this promote energy efficiency and enable greater energy access at the same time. Ensuring efficiency in oil production and distribution now comes as almost second nature to most of you, and I am sure that you are constantly looking for ways to become more efficient. I applaud OPEC’s role in the forefront of the Joint Oil Data Initiative. By providing up-to-date data and ensuring consistency among data sources, reliable information can contribute to better international integration and cooperation on energy consumption and production issues. But I would also emphasize that OPEC has a major role to play in enhancing access to energy by the poor. In Ethiopia, the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) is supporting rural electrification. In Bolivia, OFID is supporting electricity transmission. From Mozambique to Pakistan, OFID has been supporting energy supply and improving access to energy. The list goes on and your support also goes beyond the energy sector, covering public health, education, transport, water and rural development. And I would strongly encourage you to continue and expand co-operation with Partners, current and potential, in civil society, governments, the private sector and local authorities to find new ways of providing energy access for cooking and heating, and electricity. Poverty alleviation is essential for sustainable development, but poverty
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cannot be tackled effectively without energy access. Special attention should be paid to Sub-Saharan Africa. The United Nations has a number of projects and partnerships underway to promote energy access. But it is an enormous and complicated task that requires a concerted effort by all of us working on energy for sustainable development. In closing, let me reiterate the importance of an integrated approach to energy for sustainable development, one that considers economic growth, social development and environmental protection in a holistic and dynamic way. To achieve sustainable development goals, we must work together for win-win solutions that improve living standards, ensure livelihoods and safeguard our world for future generations. Thank you.
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