Despite modern technologies, one person in five lacks access to electricity, and twice that number, three billion people, rely on wood, coal, charcoal, or animal waste for cooking and heating. Ensuring that energy services are available to all will lay the foundation of sustainable global development.
VIENNA/OSLO – We grew up in entirely different regions of the world: one in Norway, the other in Sierra Leone. The gap between our two countries in terms of development could hardly be starker: Norway’s GDP per capita is more than 50 times that of Sierra Leone.
In Norway, electricity is available and affordable. In Sierra Leone, electricity is virtually non-existent in rural areas. Many people cannot afford fuel, heat, or proper housing.
What unites us is a firm commitment to ensuring that modern energy services are available to all, and our belief that achieving this goal will lay the foundation of sustainable global development. The challenge is immense: despite modern technologies, one person in five lacks access to electricity, and twice that number, three billion people, rely on wood, coal, charcoal, or animal waste for cooking and heating.
Because energy poverty is hindering human progress, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has launched the initiative Sustainable Energy for All, which sets three complementary targets to be achieved by 2030: ensuring universal access to modern energy services; doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency; and doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. Achieving these objectives will maximize development benefits and help to stabilize climate change in the long run.
To meet these targets, we need new business models and new public-private partnerships. Above all, we need a plan of action, which we finalized with public- and private-sector representatives in London in April, where the British government hosted the third Clean Energy Ministerial. Coming ahead of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June, the new Action Agenda provides the global community with a platform to catalyze change.
Businesses have a prominent role to play, for example, in the global effort to reduce dramatically gas flaring. The burning of so-called waste gas each year amounts to the equivalent of one-third of the European Union’s annual natural-gas consumption. Africa’s waste gas alone could provide 50% of the continent’s total energy needs. Moreover, CO2 emissions from gas flaring are equal to that of 70 million cars.
At a time of escalating global turmoil, there is an urgent need for incisive, informed analysis of the issues and questions driving the news – just what PS has always provided.
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Thanks to concerted efforts by the international community, mainly through the World Bank’s Global Gas Flaring Reduction initiative, a downward trend has taken hold. In 2010, 134 billion cubic meters of gas were flared, down from 147 billion cubic meters in 2009, despite a two-million barrel-a-day increase in crude-oil production over the same period. But, while the international petroleum industry has started moving in the right direction, more joint action from both industry and governments is needed.
Oil and gas companies should not wait for governments to move. The private sector needs to step up and engage in the dialogue. Businesses must provide clear expectations to authorities concerning conditions that foster long-term investments.
Governments and the development banks, for their part, have a key role to play in ensuring investment-friendly environments. In particular, stability in institutions and legislative frameworks, together with transparency and official integrity, are prerequisites for boosting the types of private investment that will advance the goals set by Sustainable Energy for All.
There is growing momentum for cleaner and more efficient energy solutions that can leapfrog existing systems, just as mobile technology revolutionized telecommunications. Coherent action from governments and businesses will accelerate this transition. However, more work is needed to address the regulatory and infrastructure challenges within and beyond the energy sector. We must act now to counter the headwinds of population growth and increasing resource scarcity.
In helping to transform the global energy system, Sustainable Energy for All will contribute to the creation of a new multi-trillion-dollar investment opportunity. It will also help to establish a new pattern of partnerships built from constructive dialogue on policy, investment, and market development by governments, businesses, and civil society.
The energy mix of tomorrow will need to meet the triple test of affordability, security of supply, and sustainability. All energy sources and technologies have a role to play in achieving universal access in an economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable fashion. The task for all stakeholders is to prepare the stage on which those roles will be performed.
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With German voters clearly demanding comprehensive change, the far right has been capitalizing on the public's discontent and benefiting from broader global political trends. If the country's democratic parties cannot deliver, they may soon find that they are no longer the mainstream.
explains why the outcome may decide whether the political “firewall” against the far right can hold.
The Russian and (now) American vision of "peace" in Ukraine would be no peace at all. The immediate task for Europe is not only to navigate Donald’s Trump unilateral pursuit of a settlement, but also to ensure that any deal does not increase the likelihood of an even wider war.
sees a Korea-style armistice with security guarantees as the only viable option in Ukraine.
Rather than engage in lengthy discussions to pry concessions from Russia, US President Donald Trump seems committed to giving the Kremlin whatever it wants to end the Ukraine war. But rewarding the aggressor and punishing the victim would amount to setting the stage for the next war.
warns that by punishing the victim, the US is setting up Europe for another war.
Within his first month back in the White House, Donald Trump has upended US foreign policy and launched an all-out assault on the country’s constitutional order. With US institutions bowing or buckling as the administration takes executive power to unprecedented extremes, the establishment of an authoritarian regime cannot be ruled out.
The rapid advance of AI might create the illusion that we have created a form of algorithmic intelligence capable of understanding us as deeply as we understand one another. But these systems will always lack the essential qualities of human intelligence.
explains why even cutting-edge innovations are not immune to the world’s inherent unpredictability.
VIENNA/OSLO – We grew up in entirely different regions of the world: one in Norway, the other in Sierra Leone. The gap between our two countries in terms of development could hardly be starker: Norway’s GDP per capita is more than 50 times that of Sierra Leone.
In Norway, electricity is available and affordable. In Sierra Leone, electricity is virtually non-existent in rural areas. Many people cannot afford fuel, heat, or proper housing.
What unites us is a firm commitment to ensuring that modern energy services are available to all, and our belief that achieving this goal will lay the foundation of sustainable global development. The challenge is immense: despite modern technologies, one person in five lacks access to electricity, and twice that number, three billion people, rely on wood, coal, charcoal, or animal waste for cooking and heating.
Because energy poverty is hindering human progress, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has launched the initiative Sustainable Energy for All, which sets three complementary targets to be achieved by 2030: ensuring universal access to modern energy services; doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency; and doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. Achieving these objectives will maximize development benefits and help to stabilize climate change in the long run.
To meet these targets, we need new business models and new public-private partnerships. Above all, we need a plan of action, which we finalized with public- and private-sector representatives in London in April, where the British government hosted the third Clean Energy Ministerial. Coming ahead of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June, the new Action Agenda provides the global community with a platform to catalyze change.
Businesses have a prominent role to play, for example, in the global effort to reduce dramatically gas flaring. The burning of so-called waste gas each year amounts to the equivalent of one-third of the European Union’s annual natural-gas consumption. Africa’s waste gas alone could provide 50% of the continent’s total energy needs. Moreover, CO2 emissions from gas flaring are equal to that of 70 million cars.
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At a time of escalating global turmoil, there is an urgent need for incisive, informed analysis of the issues and questions driving the news – just what PS has always provided.
Subscribe to Digital or Digital Plus now to secure your discount.
Subscribe Now
Thanks to concerted efforts by the international community, mainly through the World Bank’s Global Gas Flaring Reduction initiative, a downward trend has taken hold. In 2010, 134 billion cubic meters of gas were flared, down from 147 billion cubic meters in 2009, despite a two-million barrel-a-day increase in crude-oil production over the same period. But, while the international petroleum industry has started moving in the right direction, more joint action from both industry and governments is needed.
Oil and gas companies should not wait for governments to move. The private sector needs to step up and engage in the dialogue. Businesses must provide clear expectations to authorities concerning conditions that foster long-term investments.
Governments and the development banks, for their part, have a key role to play in ensuring investment-friendly environments. In particular, stability in institutions and legislative frameworks, together with transparency and official integrity, are prerequisites for boosting the types of private investment that will advance the goals set by Sustainable Energy for All.
There is growing momentum for cleaner and more efficient energy solutions that can leapfrog existing systems, just as mobile technology revolutionized telecommunications. Coherent action from governments and businesses will accelerate this transition. However, more work is needed to address the regulatory and infrastructure challenges within and beyond the energy sector. We must act now to counter the headwinds of population growth and increasing resource scarcity.
In helping to transform the global energy system, Sustainable Energy for All will contribute to the creation of a new multi-trillion-dollar investment opportunity. It will also help to establish a new pattern of partnerships built from constructive dialogue on policy, investment, and market development by governments, businesses, and civil society.
The energy mix of tomorrow will need to meet the triple test of affordability, security of supply, and sustainability. All energy sources and technologies have a role to play in achieving universal access in an economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable fashion. The task for all stakeholders is to prepare the stage on which those roles will be performed.