Energy Poverty Impacts Three Billion People. Time to Think Big.

The purpose of a nation’s power sector is to deliver reliable electricity at the lowest cost and for the greatest benefit.

What are the risks associated with new gas-fired power in developing economies, and how can we mitigate them? In the face of intensifying climate change impacts, we must shift decisively away from unabated fossil fuels.

Higher prices for oil & gas should be good news for wind & solar energy and drive an even faster energy transition – at least in rich countries.

The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, now headed to President Biden’s desk for signature, is predominantly a domestic bill – with huge ramifications for U.S.

Electricity is a critical input for businesses that rely on productivity-enhancing technologies. As a result, firms, particularly small and medium enterprises (SMEs), incur substantial productivity losses from unreliable electricity supply, which is extremely common in emerging market economies.1 Our study finds that, in Ghana, there is essentially no effective method that SMEs can employ to fully compensate for unreliable power supply in power-reliant businesses – and solving this challenge will likely require broader investment or policy intervention.2 Unreliable electricity supply is a major obstacle for firms More than one in ten firms in Sub-Saharan Africa cite unreliable electricity as the biggest obstacle to their operations (Figure 1).

The Guardian recently published an article supposedly exposing new African plans to expand oil and gas production and raising alarm bells about the climate implications.

The White House released President Biden’s Sub-Saharan Africa Strategy yesterday, aiming to reset strained relationships, clarify US priorities, and draw a line in the sand from the previous Administration.

Todd Moss testified along with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (World Trade Organization), Donald Kaberuka (African Union), and Rama Yade (Atlantic Council) at the House Foreign Affairs Committee Congressional Roundtable: "U.S.

Originally appeared in Foreign Policy, July 14, 2022. Few should be surprised that, facing energy shortages and rising costs for fuel and electricity, rich countries are turning back to more and dirtier fossil fuels.

Experts agree that climate change mitigation will ultimately require removing carbon from the atmosphere to the tune of a billion tons of CO2 per year in only a few decades.