The planet cannot achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and reverse climate change without universal access to clean and cheap electricity by 2030, according to a UN representative.
“The math doesn't come together,” Damilola Ogunbiyi, who co-chairs UN-Energy and is the special representative advising the UN Secretary General on sustainable energy, told The National.
“People do not tend to understand the relationship between energy poverty and climate change” and it is “unacceptable” to ignore the nearly 1 billion people around the world without access to electricity, she said.
Energy generation is the largest contributor to climate change, accounting for 60 per cent of global emissions. As the world's population continues to grow, so will the demand for cheap energy, and an economy reliant on fossil fuels is causing drastic changes to the climate, according to the UN.
Between 2000 and 2016, the number of people with electricity climbed from 78 per cent to 87 per cent, while that of people without electricity dipped to slightly below one billion. Meanwhile, 3 billion people – 40 per cent of the global population – rely on polluting and unhealthy fuels for cooking.
Ms Ogunbiyi is the UN’s leader on Sustainable Development Goal 7: ensuring access to cheap, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030.
She was in Abu Dhabi last week, her latest stop on a global tour laying the groundwork for the UN's high-level dialogue on energy, to be held in New York in September.
The meeting will be the first global gathering in 40 years on energy under the auspices of the UN's General Assembly, providing a historic opportunity to rally support for the Paris Agreement on limiting climate change.
While the world is falling behind on its climate commitment, Ms Ogunbiyi said her goal is to “raise the ambition” of hitting the Sustainable Development Goal 7 by 2030.
Over the next decade, Africa and South Asia are going to be the only places where more power is needed instead of less, she said.
You can be clean from day one. And that is why I talk about the opportunity instead of the challenge
Damilola Ogunbiyi
“You can be clean from day one. And that is why I talk about the opportunity instead of the challenge," she said. “I'm still very optimistic [about achieving SDG 7]. I have to be, because the technology is there."
The potential economic uplift would be massive. Sub-Saharan Africa would unlock a five-fold increase in economic output, and pull 1 billion people out of poverty.
“The UAE is showing [climate] leadership but we also need them to do it internationally. We need the countries themselves to say these are my energy transition targets but also, this is how I help people who are less advantaged,” said Ms Ogunbiyi.
To that end, she wants to see a far larger number of off-grid projects taking place in Africa. Too often, we “talk about these big scale, wonderful concentrated solar plants and then connecting to a lovely grid, and all of a sudden there is light,” she said.
“That is not real life. There are very few grids in a lot of developing countries that can take a large surge of renewable energy today.”
She said approaches to electrification have to be tailored to community needs, whether that means decentralised or off-grid solutions, as well as big, utility-scale solutions, in order to reach the SDG 7 target.
Electrification is also a major point of concern for an equitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines and recovery from the pandemic.
Only 23 per cent of primary healthcare centres in Africa have electricity, Ms Ogunbiyi, who is also the chief executive of Clean Energy for All, said. The majority of clinics do not have the cold storage needed to safely store vaccines.
“I mean a lot when I say electricity is the difference between life and death,” she said.
Demand for clean cooking fuels is another largely untapped opportunity for reducing carbon emissions and creating economic growth. About 3 billion people cook using polluting open fires or simple stoves fuelled by kerosene, wood or coal, according to the World Health Organisation.
Each year, about 4 million people die prematurely from illnesses attributable to household air pollution from inefficient cooking practices using polluting stoves paired with solid fuels and kerosene.
“I think it is absolutely unacceptable as a global world that we see 1.6 million African women die every year because they use fuel wood,” said Ms Ogunbiyi.
Increasing access to clean electrification and cooking would reduce poverty and gender-based violence, cutting the average cooking time from four hours to one.
Ahead of Cop26 in Glasgow in November, Ms Ogunbiyi is calling for a physical pavilion at the meeting dedicated to SDG 7, for governments and the private sector to have a place to meet and plan.
“Energy is that golden thread that affects everything,” she said. “There are a lot [of the Sustainable Development Goals] that cannot be achieved if the one on SDG 7 is not achieved, from gender to water to health.”
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Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Lesley Manville
Rating: 4/5
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
New UK refugee system
- A new “core protection” for refugees moving from permanent to a more basic, temporary protection
- Shortened leave to remain - refugees will receive 30 months instead of five years
- A longer path to settlement with no indefinite settled status until a refugee has spent 20 years in Britain
- To encourage refugees to integrate the government will encourage them to out of the core protection route wherever possible.
- Under core protection there will be no automatic right to family reunion
- Refugees will have a reduced right to public funds
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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What is the FNC?
The Federal National Council is one of five federal authorities established by the UAE constitution. It held its first session on December 2, 1972, a year to the day after Federation.
It has 40 members, eight of whom are women. The members represent the UAE population through each of the emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have eight members each, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah six, and Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain have four.
They bring Emirati issues to the council for debate and put those concerns to ministers summoned for questioning.
The FNC’s main functions include passing, amending or rejecting federal draft laws, discussing international treaties and agreements, and offering recommendations on general subjects raised during sessions.
Federal draft laws must first pass through the FNC for recommendations when members can amend the laws to suit the needs of citizens. The draft laws are then forwarded to the Cabinet for consideration and approval.
Since 2006, half of the members have been elected by UAE citizens to serve four-year terms and the other half are appointed by the Ruler’s Courts of the seven emirates.
In the 2015 elections, 78 of the 252 candidates were women. Women also represented 48 per cent of all voters and 67 per cent of the voters were under the age of 40.
How to help
Call the hotline on 0502955999 or send "thenational" to the following numbers:
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Notable salonnières of the Middle East through history
Al Khasan (Okaz, Saudi Arabia)
Tamadir bint Amr Al Harith, known simply as Al Khasan, was a poet from Najd famed for elegies, earning great renown for the eulogy of her brothers Mu’awiyah and Sakhr, both killed in tribal wars. Although not a salonnière, this prestigious 7th century poet fostered a culture of literary criticism and could be found standing in the souq of Okaz and reciting her poetry, publicly pronouncing her views and inviting others to join in the debate on scholarship. She later converted to Islam.
Maryana Marrash (Aleppo)
A poet and writer, Marrash helped revive the tradition of the salon and was an active part of the Nadha movement, or Arab Renaissance. Born to an established family in Aleppo in Ottoman Syria in 1848, Marrash was educated at missionary schools in Aleppo and Beirut at a time when many women did not receive an education. After touring Europe, she began to host salons where writers played chess and cards, competed in the art of poetry, and discussed literature and politics. An accomplished singer and canon player, music and dancing were a part of these evenings.
Princess Nazil Fadil (Cairo)
Princess Nazil Fadil gathered religious, literary and political elite together at her Cairo palace, although she stopped short of inviting women. The princess, a niece of Khedive Ismail, believed that Egypt’s situation could only be solved through education and she donated her own property to help fund the first modern Egyptian University in Cairo.
Mayy Ziyadah (Cairo)
Ziyadah was the first to entertain both men and women at her Cairo salon, founded in 1913. The writer, poet, public speaker and critic, her writing explored language, religious identity, language, nationalism and hierarchy. Born in Nazareth, Palestine, to a Lebanese father and Palestinian mother, her salon was open to different social classes and earned comparisons with souq of where Al Khansa herself once recited.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
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Kyrgyzstan v Qatar, 5.45pm
All Black 39-12 British & Irish Lions
Russia's Muslim Heartlands
Dominic Rubin, Oxford
Water waste
In the UAE’s arid climate, small shrubs, bushes and flower beds usually require about six litres of water per square metre, daily. That increases to 12 litres per square metre a day for small trees, and 300 litres for palm trees.
Horticulturists suggest the best time for watering is before 8am or after 6pm, when water won't be dried up by the sun.
A global report published by the Water Resources Institute in August, ranked the UAE 10th out of 164 nations where water supplies are most stretched.
The Emirates is the world’s third largest per capita water consumer after the US and Canada.
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