UK

Labour for a Green New Deal policy motion backed by conference

Elliot Chappell

26th September, 2021, 

Delegates at the Labour Party’s annual conference have backed a policy motion calling on the party to back a “socialist green new deal” advocated by campaign organisation Labour for a Green New Deal this afternoon.

The motion was also promoted by the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) and the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), together with the majority of local parties that submitted environmental motions. It was passed by a show of hands.

Dozens of motions on the climate emergency were submitted ahead of Labour conference this year, including 25 that used the Labour for a Green New Deal model motion.

GMB put forward a counter proposal at a compositing meeting on Saturday, the process whereby party figures, motion backers and affiliates negotiate over wording. Its separate motion calls for investment in new nuclear plants and “green gases”.

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Update, 2.20pm: A show of hands in the conference hall for the GMB-backed green new deal motion was too close to call. A card vote was called and the motion was passed with 59.21% in favour. A full breakdown of the vote is expected on Monday.

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The trade union’s motion appears to soften support for nationalising energy companies, saying instead: “Public and alternative forms of ownership will be necessary to tackle climate and environmental breakdown.”

Whereas the first composite motion, from the Labour for a Green New Deal campaign group, calls for “public ownership of energy including energy companies, creating an integrated, democratic system”.

Commenting after the vote, Momentum co-chair Gaya Sriskanthan said: “This is a turning point. The grassroots have had enough of timid centrism and have overwhelmingly endorsed transformative socialist policy that meets the crises of the 21st century head on.

“From the public ownership of the energy sector to the creation of a national care service and millions of green jobs, this motion gives us a clear vision of what a just transition under a Labour government would look like.”

Labour for a Green New Deal co-founder Chris Saltmarsh said in response to the result that Starmer “should restate the ambitious pledges of his leadership campaign, and put the Green New Deal at the heart of his agenda”.

“This result shows that there is huge support for a radical agenda in the Labour Party, and that the membership and affiliated unions are united in their support for transformative politics.”

Labour Conference’s backing for the future of hundreds of thousands of energy workers will be welcomed in working class communities across our regions and nations.

Commenting after the result of the card vote on composite motion two was announced, Gary Smith said: “We support a green new deal but it can’t be based on running down industries and making tens of thousands redundant – that’s not how you take workers and their communities with you.”

The GMB general secretary described the creation of low-carbon jobs through the opening of new nuclear power plants as, and “recognising the realities of the UK’s gas needs in the grip of a growing energy crisis”, as “vital”.

He added: “The Labour Party Conference has taken a big step forward towards ensuring that climate justice and economic justice go hand in hand as the UK plays its part in tackling the climate crisis.”

Below is the full text of both green new deal composite motions.

Green new deal one – composite one

Conference notes:

• As with Covid, the climate crisis exposes sharply the inequalities in society in the UK and internationally and we must ensure that workers are at the heart of any future programme and that means unshackling trade unions.
• The UK faces a post-covid unemployment crisis with insecurity and lowpay rife for workers.
• Intensifying climate and environmental breakdown brings devastating threats to public health and livelihoods.
• The UN’s latest climate report states that temperatures are likely to rise by more than the vital 1.5C limit in the next two decades, bringing widespread devastation and extreme weather.
• That only immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in emissions can prevent such breakdown.
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• Local communities in the UK and countries around the world are experiencing climate change related extreme weather events, including devastating flooding, wildfires, hurricanes, and droughts. This is with warming at 1.2°C above average pre-industrial levels. Currently, we are headed for a 2.9°C temperature increase.
• Keir Starmer has pledged to hardwire the socialist Green New Deal into everything we do.
• The UK spends billions of pounds per year on fossil fuel subsidies and is a key jurisdiction for the enforcement of globally accrued debt.

Conference believes:

• Ahead of COP26, Labour should promote a just, green recovery combining efforts to address unemployment, climate change, and public health.
• The Tory government is posturing on climate change with no serious plan to meet its climate targets. It has cut Green Home Grants and paid £40bn fossil fuels subsidies since March 2020 alone.
• Privatisation has undermined decarbonisation and pandemic response measures.
• The Covid Pandemic has shown that the levers of the state are required to respond to crises.
• Debt relief is essential to achieve climate justice.

Resolves to support:

• The socialist Green New Deal that will shift power from capital into the hands of workers .
  Public ownership of energy including energy companies, creating an integrated, democratic system.
• A government program creating millions of well-paid, unionised green jobs with publicly owned entities
  Creating well-financed publicly owned national and regional green investment banks.
  Mass investment in green technologies and renewables;
• A just transition with a comprehensive re-training program and green job guarantee on union rates for affected workers.
• A just transition for British steelworkers, through sustained investment to decarbonise the steel industry
• Expansion and electrification of integrated public transport, including public ownership of our railways; free local bus networks, rail electrification, highspeed rail, sustainably powered rail freight and electric buses;
• Just climate adaptation, investing in fire and rescue services, flood defences, and resilient infrastructure;
• Retrofitting all homes to the highest standard of energy efficiency
• The creation of a National Climate Service, similar to creation of our NHS by Labour in 1948, to now tackle the crisis facing our planet
• Subsidies to support a comprehensive investment programme in renewable energy, home retrofit and zero carbon homes, decarbonisation of industry and transport, and nature restoration.
• Universal basic services, including a national care service
• Gearing education and training to climate transition.
• Banning fracking.
• National Nature service including ten new national parks, strategic rewilding, land regeneration, and particularly the restoration of upland bogs.
• Agricultural transition with the contribution regenerative farmers make by capturing carbon, managing water and promoting biodiversity to be recognised with funding
• Repealing all anti-trade union laws so workers can freely take industrial action over wider social and political issues, for industrial action to ensure action on climate change.
• Workers organising to decarbonise industries and the global supply chain.
• Using public procurement to promote decarbonisation, environmental protections, and international justice in global supply chains.
• All future stimulus and bailout eligibility linked to climate action and just transition plans;
• A global socialist Green New Deal, debt relief for low-income country debt held by UK institutions, financially assisting the transition in developing countries and freely sharing technology and resources internationally.
• Legal recognition of climate refugees’ right to asylum.
• Linking internationally with indigenous groups, trade unions and groups resisting ecological assault.

Green new deal two – composite two

Conference notes:

• Already 1.2°C of warming has taken place, causing floods, droughts and rising seas disproportionately impacting on developing countries.
• The IPCC August 2021 report is a ‘code red for humanity’ and that this is the significant decade for preventing catastrophic climate change by limiting global heating to below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
• The COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow this year may be the final opportunity for the world to slow and then reverse climate change.
• Intensifying climate and environmental breakdown bring devastating threats to public health and livelihoods.
• Even before the pandemic, air pollution represented a national health emergency resulting in an estimated 40,000 early deaths each year, costing the UK £20 billion annually.
• The UK also faces a post-Covid unemployment crisis with insecurity and lowpay rife for workers.
• Climate change is a global issue that requires international solutions, because this is as much a social injustice as an environmental one.
• The environmental cost of imported steel is greater than domestically produced steel, and any transition that does not keep steel in the UK is a false economy.
• Keir Starmer has pledged to hardwire the Green New Deal into everything we do.
• Labour councils lead on decarbonisation: Nottingham City has reduced per capita CO2 emissions by 52.3% since 2005 and aims to be carbon neutral by 2028.

Conference believes:

• Britain must cut the substantial majority of carbon emissions by 2030
• Policies must be developed with workers and trade unions, not imposed on them.
• In working with businesses to reduce their impact on the environment.
• In line with the ILO’s definition of a just transition, that ‘strong social consensus on the goal and pathways to sustainability is fundamental.’
• Privatisation has undermined decarbonisation and pandemic response measures.
• Public and alternative forms of ownership will be necessary to tackle climate and environmental breakdown.
• Ahead of COP26 Labour should promote a just, green recovery combining efforts to address unemployment, climate change, and public health.
• The UK’s pathway to 1.5°C needs a balanced and secure energy mix that includes renewables, nuclear, and the flexibility currently provided by gas and in future by fuels including hydrogen.
• Debt relief is essential to climate justice.
• We can solve the unemployment crisis and rapidly decarbonise with a Green New Deal creating secure, well-paid, unionised green jobs.

Conference resolves to support a just transition toward a low-carbon economy, including:

• Mass investment in green technologies, such as green gas;
• Expansion of public transport, and electrification;
• Just climate adaptation, including investing in fire and rescue services, flood defences, and resilient infrastructure;
• Upgrading homes to the highest standard of energy efficiency, including retrofitting and insulation.
• Agricultural transition and sustainable food policies, putting food and farming at the heart of the global response to the climate emergency.
• Establishing a legal right to breathe clean air by ensuring the law on air quality is at least as strict as WHO guidelines, with tough new targets, deadlines and duties on Ministers to enforce them and new powers for local authorities;
• A comprehensive training program;
• Creating well-financed publicly owned national and regional green investment banks;
• Using public procurement to promote decarbonisation, environmental protections, and international justice in global supply chains;
• New nuclear plants, including Sizewell C and Small Modular Reactors;
• Reform of international trade rules to better build up our domestic energy manufacturing sectors;
• Devolving powers to devolved and local authorities to support a just transition for workers;
• A global Green New Deal, sharing technology and resources internationally, bringing forward debt relief and financially assisting the transition in developing countries.

 

How Chinese investments in Africa are harming the continent

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Lei Fang | Updated: 24-09-2021 

Image Credit: Pixabay

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Per Beijing's Ministry of Commerce latest report, China is Africa's biggest bilateral trading partner again this year, reaching a record year-on-year increase of 40.5%. After a pandemic-induced dip in 2020, trade between Beijing and the continent was valued at almost $140 billion during the first seven months of 2021. However, the elephant in the room at the announcement of these impressive-sounding figures was China's parallel status as Africa's largest bilateral lending partner.

Desperate for foreign investment to shore up their economies as well as their grip on power, increasing numbers of African leaders are turning to the ready money on offer as part of China's global expansion policy, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). While these loan agreements are guarded by strict non-disclosure agreements, Chinese credit comes at a steep price for the people in these countries.

Two of the most worrying case studies of Chinese debtors are unfolding in Djibouti and Ethiopia, offering cautionary tales of the effects of Chinese encroachment. China's partnership with the deeply problematic leaders of these countries had far-reaching consequences for the respective countries' populations and might eventually lead to a backlash against China on the continent.

Djibouti's dangerous pact with China

Djibouti is a small country of under 1 million but is of outsized geopolitical importance due to its strategic position on the Horn of Africa. For the last 20 years, the country has been under the iron grip of President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, no less thanks to Chinese backing, which has been instrumental in securing his place in power amid rising discontent with his rule. And while Beijing was slow to enter the geopolitical power game on the Horn, its influence in Djibouti has allowed it to catch up in record time by opening its first and only overseas naval base in close proximity to those of the US and France.

Other aspects of Chinese influence in the country have since become exceedingly visible. For example, Beijing's Export-Import Bank of China (Exim) financed 70% of the electric railway line between Addis Ababa and Djibouti, to the tune of $3.4 billion. A year later, the same bank funded the Ethiopia-Djibouti water pipeline for $327 million. The country now ranks first in the world for its 100% debt burden to China as a percentage of its GDP.

Another example is the construction of the Doraleh Container Terminal, Djibouti's showpiece infrastructure project. A joint venture between Djibouti and Dubai-based port operator DP World, the project has become notorious for the treatment of DP World as an important international business partner. In 2012, Djibouti's regulators cancelled DP World's 30-year-concession to operate the terminal, before handing it to a Chinese state-owned company and competitor, China Merchants Group, in 2018. Despite multiple rulings in DP World's favour since then, Djibouti has yet to compensate or restitute the holding.

Importantly, the dock is now managed by an entirely Chinese workforce, doing precious little for the country's chronic unemployment. This is raising wider questions of China as a trustworthy business partner for African countries as well, given that China portrays itself as a "brotherly state" to African leaders and a source of money, employment and ultimately economic advancement. However, Djibouti is a prime example of how one-sided these promises really are: Djibouti's poverty rates sit at 79%, with 42% of the population living in extreme poverty. The United Nations' Human Development Index (HDI), ranked the country 166 out of 189 in 2019.

The proof that circumstances are not improving with Chinese funding can be seen in the fact that three Djiboutian football players who were in transit through Paris earlier this month refused to board their connecting flight home and have requested asylum from the French state. As Sino-African relations expert Thierry Pairault explains, "Chinese money has had very limited impact for Djiboutians".

Beijing's hand in Ethiopia's genocide

This state of affairs is by no means limited to Djibouti, because a Chinese partnership is causing even greater distress in Ethiopia, at the other end of the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway. In Ethiopia, too, China is the biggest trade partner and financial investor. However, while the Chinese-funded train track is proving unprofitable, the primary repercussions of China's ubiquitous presence in Ethiopia are outright deadly.

Since November 2020, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has carried out large-scale military operations against the opposition group, the People's Liberation Front, based in the country's Tigray region. As ethnically-motivated killings and sexual violence mount, the fighting is also displacing more than two million from their homes and leaving millions more without access to food, water or healthcare. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has criticised the "de facto humanitarian blockade" by the armed groups.

As the rest of the world turned against Ahmed for the ongoing genocide occurring under his watch, China confirmed their commitment to his administration in August. The disregard for the atrocities committed is weakly explained away by Beijing's policy of "non-interference". Not only is this stance highly hypocritical for its obvious flexibility when it suits China's interests, but this tight knit relationship is in fact directly impacting the lives of the people. Far from non-interference, the UN's Chinese delegation delayed a discussion of the unfolding events until nine months into the crisis, and continually obstructed a meaningful UN Security Council intervention very difficult. This impasse at international level has, in turn, led to hesitancy among the members of the African Union. While China's business interests in the country remain intact, war crimes against Ethiopians continue unabated.

An unstable future for Chinese investment

By knowingly indebting some of the world's poorest nations and supporting their oppressive leaders, China can no longer claim to "leave their sovereignty unscathed". But beyond the harm caused to the people in these countries, such self-interested projects which bolster the controversial leaders of these vulnerable countries are damaging the reputation of the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself. Perhaps the reckoning for China is already in the making.

(Devdiscourse's journalists were not involved in the production of this article. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Devdiscourse and Devdiscourse does not claim any responsibility for the same.)

 

Made for mission life of 6 months, India's Mars probe completes 7 years in orbit

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PTI | Bengaluru | Updated: 26-09-2021 

Representative Image Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

• Country:
 
• India

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India's Mars Orbiter spacecraft has completed seven years in its orbit, well beyond its designed mission life of six months. ''Indeed, a satisfying feeling,'' K Radhakrishnan who as the then Chairman of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) led the Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan) team told PTI on the milestone.

MOM is the maiden interplanetary mission of ISRO. Launched on November 5, 2013, the probe was successfully inserted into Martian orbit on September 24, 2014, in its first attempt. MOM is primarily a technology demonstration venture and all the mission objectives were successfully met, according to officials of Bengaluru-headquartered India's national space agency.

The main lessons learned were in the field of design and realization of systems and subsystems, launch for the interplanetary mission, insertion into other planet's orbit, operation of the spacecraft, and scientific instruments around Mars orbit, they said.

The lessons learned have raised the confidence of ISRO scientists for taking up future interplanetary missions.

ISRO has been continuously monitoring the spacecraft and its five scientific instruments, and officials said scientific analysis of the data being received from the MOM spacecraft is in progress.

On the health of the spacecraft, M Annadurai, who was the Programme Director of MOM, said the spacecraft's ''moving elements are facing some issues and some of the redundancies we have to switch over.'' ''The spacecraft's health is reasonably good considering that we are in the seventh year,'' Annadurai told PTI.

He expects the spacecraft to have a mission life of probably another year.

On the reasons for the long mission life, Annadurai said ISRO had done corrections after learning lessons from the Chandrayaan-1 venture, in terms of reconfiguring the spacecraft and optimization of fuel management, among others.

Noting that Earth remote-sensing satellites typically have a mission life of seven to nine years, he said it was a very satisfying moment that India could establish that around Mars also, a spacecraft can be in operation for such a long period.

On some criticism in some quarters that scientific output of the MOM was ''low'', Annadurai said it was more of a technology demonstration mission. He pointed out that the spacecraft was launched by PSLV as GSLV was not in operational condition then. ISRO could apportion only about 15 kg for scientific instruments, and the time available for scientists to develop them was only 18-19 months.

''I don't think we could have done better than what we have done,'' Annadurai said.

ISRO officials said the spacecraft has already covered three Martian years (one Martian year is about two earth years).

''We have seen how changes happen on Mars from one season to another, one Martian year to another Martian year,'' they said.

Annadurai said: ''We have good inputs on seasonal effects on Mars atmosphere...surface. The mission has provided meaningful data also''.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

 Nfld. & Labrador·First Person

Can a trans man find happiness in Labrador? I'm about to find out

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Even as young as 8 years old, I knew something was different about me, writes Mason Woodward

Mason Woodward · For CBC First Person · Posted: Sep 25, 2021 7:00 AM NT | Last Updated: September 25

Mason Woodward enjoying the sights back home in Labrador in 2021. He was born and raised in central Labrador, a place known for harsh winters and even harsher mosquitoes — but not for its LGBT community. (Submitted by Mason Woodward)

This is a First Person column by Mason Woodward, who returned to his home in Happy Valley-Goose Bay after his transition. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

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I was born and raised in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, N.L., a place known for harsh winters and even harsher mosquitoes. But what it isn't known for is its sexual and gender diversity.

I am a trans man, which means I was assigned female at birth, though the arbitrary gender marker didn't reflect my true gender. Ever since I was young — even as young as eight years old — I knew something was different about me.

All children love to play and make believe, imagining themselves in all sorts of different roles and situations. 

But what I noticed, even that young, was that playing traditional "female" roles just didn't cut it for me. No matter what, I played "male" roles and felt much more comfortable doing so.

As I began questioning exactly why this was while going through puberty, I was left with many more questions and no answers. This was in the 1990s when the internet was still in its early stages. It wasn't as user friendly and didn't have the seemingly limitless access to resources like it does today. No one really talked about 2SLGBTQIA+ issues — an acronym that includes people who are two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, asexual, and more — and it certainly wasn't talked about in my schools in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. 

I had no idea where to go to figure out what I was feeling. I didn't even have the language to figure out where to start.

As the internet evolved in my early teens, I discovered forums, chat rooms and online video games. It was there, while reveling in complete anonymity, that I was able to finally start exploring my gender to try and make sense of the world and myself. 

I was happily able to identify as male and have other people accept it without question. It felt so right. 

Mason, pre-transition, and his younger brother Isaac Woodward. (Submitted by Mason Woodward)

Of course, the fear of being "outed" always loomed over me, making it harder still to be my truest self.

When I was in my senior year of high school, all these feelings of confusion about my gender were too much, so I approached my mother.

"Mom, I think I should've been born a boy," I told her that fateful day. She was confused but supportive, though neither of us had the language or knowledge to truly tackle what was going on: gender dysphoria. 

The conversation eventually turned towards my sexuality, although gender and sexuality are two distinct things. With nothing really being resolved, I continued on quietly living my double life, eventually leaving Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

In my mid- to late-20s, I started to finally get the terminology for everything I was feeling. Before then, I barely even knew what "trans" or "transgender" actually meant. 

It was then that things started to click. I was massively relieved to hear that there were other people out there like me, though the idea of actually transitioning still seemed out of reach … until I saw a friend of mine had started. 

I realized I could transition as well; that I no longer had to hide myself behind a computer screen.

Mason came out to his brother Isaac, close to Isaac's wedding in 2017. (Submitted by Mason Woodward)

By the time I started medically transitioning (starting with hormone replacement therapy), I was 30 and living in the U.K. It was thrilling yet terrifying, since I wasn't out to my family back home. When I came back to Canada, landing in Montreal, I still didn't know how I'd deal with it all. But the hormone replacement therapy was doing its job, and I wouldn't be able to hide the physical changes forever.

At this point, in 2017, a series of family emergencies meant I had to be around my loved ones more. I finally came out to my brother close to his wedding — the same guy who never seemed to question why I only ever played as a guy when we were kids. 

When I did, he wrapped me up in his arms for a big hug and lovingly said, "I wish you had told me sooner, I would've gotten you a suit" for the wedding. 

I can't even begin to tell you what an emotional impact that one moment had on me, and still has on me, to this day.

Months later, I finally came out to my parents. However, they needed more time to come to terms with the revelation and figure things out on their own. Now, they're my strongest allies and my relationship with them is even stronger than ever.

Mason and his family took part in the Pride March in Happy Valley-Goose Bay in 2021. (Submitted by Mason Woodward)

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I was living in Montreal. I eventually started to look at returning to my hometown. But I was scared.

I had a wonderful physician in Montreal who specialized in trans health care, and things were going well with my transition. I also had a lot of 2SLGBTQIA+ friends and the community in Montreal was so vibrant. 

Thinking about Happy Valley-Goose Bay, I had the sinking feeling that I'd somehow have to go back into the closet. I hadn't heard good things about the health care when it came to being trans and the 2SLGBTQIA+ community was practically invisible to me. 

But my loneliness from the pandemic and the realization that life is too short made me finally come home.

• Perspectives matter: Read more N.L. opinion columns from our contributors

The transition into Labrador from Quebec was — and still is — a bit bumpy, between managing my hormone replacement therapy and finding a local physician that can confidently handle my ongoing care. Although things are looking better than I initially feared, I am still losing sleep wondering if I can truly be taken care of here in Labrador.

On top of all that stress, I'm slowly still trying to figure out where I fit within the 2SLGBTQIA+ community at home. Fortunately, there's more awareness in the community than when I was growing up, and more people who are out and proud, though it's still pretty lonely. I celebrated my first Pride week at home this year, which was amazing. 

I've still only been back in my hometown for several months, and there are still a lot of things up in the air. 

I hope to be able to live a fulfilling life here in the Big Land as my authentic self — but only time will tell.

Read more articles from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mason Woodward

Contributor

Mason Woodward lives in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador. He is a writer by trade and is passionate about travelling, ghost hunting and betta fish.

Drive to end energy poverty gets jump start at United Nations

World leaders are gathering to revitalise commitments to end energy poverty for all.

World leaders gathered for the United Nations General Assembly are expected on Friday to recommit to pledges to end energy poverty [File: Spencer Platt/Reuters]

By Radmilla Suleymanova
24 Sep 2021

New York City, the United States – The COVID-19 pandemic has set back decades of progress on poverty and development – including the drive to eliminate energy poverty for good by the end of the decade.

On Friday, world leaders gathered for the United Nations General Assembly are expected to recommit to pledges to end energy poverty – and take those efforts a step further by hashing out a road map to get it done.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is a clear warning,” Achim Steiner, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), told Al Jazeera. “Recovery from this crisis cannot be driven by a zero-sum game of economy versus environment or health versus economy.”

Some 138 energy compacts have already been signed by various UN member states in the lead-up to Friday’s UN High-level Dialogue on Energy (HLDE), where activists and academics will rub shoulders with world and business leaders.

The gathering will see nations commit to accelerating previous pledges to advance clean energy for all by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Member states will be recharging efforts to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the targets set out by the global 2015 Paris Agreement on climate-change mitigation.

Back in 2015, 193 UN member states voluntarily pledged to fulfil 17 development goals known as the SDGs by 2030. The ambitious agenda promises to “leave no one behind” by ending hunger and poverty, and ensuring quality education, clean water and sanitation for all.

“What makes this HLDE so critical is the fact that it is taking place at the very moment we need it most. We are not on track to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement while we are not on a trajectory to achieve SDG7 [the goal on energy] by 2030,” Steiner warned.
Progress, but not enough

Sustainable Development Goal 7, or SDG7, aims to guarantee that everyone on the planet has access to clean, reliable and affordable clean energy by 2030.

And while energy access has grown in recent years, it is not growing for everyone.

Some 760 million people worldwide still have no electricity and 2.6 billion people – or one in three people globally – have no access to clean cooking fuels, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The coronavirus pandemic has seen the status quo deteriorate even further by reversing decades of development gains and pushing an additional 97 million more people worldwide back into poverty. Some 118 million more people faced hunger last year compared to 2019, according to the UN.


In his address to the General Assembly on Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres underscored the urgency for action ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) later this year, warning that the world is “seemingly light years away from reaching our targets”.

If the trajectory continues the way it’s going now, there will still be 650 million people with no electricity by 2030, the UN warns.

“​​A minimum level of energy access – a simple light for example – is just not enough,” Damilola Ogunbiyi, the UN secretary-general’s special representative for Sustainable Energy for All, told Al Jazeera. “People need enough electricity to live healthy and fulfilled lives.”

‘Does that turn into clean energy financing abroad?’

Three-quarters of all greenhouse gas emissions stem from energy production. It is the leading cause of the climate crisis, which hits the world’s poorest and most vulnerable the hardest, according to the UN.

While the challenges to bringing clean, affordable energy to all are formidable, there has been some positive momentum recently, the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center’s Deputy Director Reed Blakemore told Al Jazeera.

For example, during his UN address on Wednesday, President Xi Jinping of China said that Beijing would no longer fund the construction of new coal-fired power projects overseas.

China had previously poured money into coal projects in developing countries like Indonesia and Bangladesh.

The question, said Blakemore, is, “Does that turn into clean energy financing abroad?”

Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks remotely during the 76th session of the General Assembly at UN Headquarters in New York City 

[File: Mary Altaffer/Reuters]

Back in 2009, developed nations promised to mobilise $100bn per year by 2020 for developing countries to help achieve clean and renewable energy goals. And while that amount climbed from $52.4bn in 2013 to $78.3bn in 2018, according to a recent report (PDF) from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, a group of major economies), there is still a significant shortfall.

Total climate finance mobilised by rich nations for developing economies in 2019 was just under $80bn, which means developed countries will need to fill a $20bn gap, the report said.

While the previous US administration of President Donald Trump dealt global climate goals a setback by pulling out of the Paris climate accord and slashing funding for the UN and its agencies, current US President Joe Biden this week underscored Washington’s renewed commitment to tackling climate change in his first UN address since taking office.

“The Biden administration is clearly making an effort to lay down a marker to the US’s recommitment to global climate goals,” Blakemore said.

The US Senate last month approved a $1 trillion infrastructure bill – the largest in decades – to build better roads, bridges, public transport and broadband internet during the next five years.

But the clock is ticking, UN’s chief Guterres warned this week.

“Promises, after all, are worthless if people do not see results in their daily lives,” he said. “We must get serious. And we must act fast.”
Africa and Asia: Still left in the dark

Three-quarters of people globally who lack access to electricity – some 580 million people – live in sub-Saharan Africa. And that number is believed to have increased during the pandemic, as governments divert financial resources to the public health response, according to the IEA.

A woman uses paraffin light while cooking during an electricity load-shedding blackout in Soweto, South Africa 

[File: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters]

That deficit can be lethal.

Only a quarter of primary healthcare facilities in Africa have electricity, says the UN.

And some 2.6 billion people globally lack access to clean cooking oil, relying instead on solid biomass, kerosene or coal, according to the IEA.

“Not having enough electricity or clean cooking options can mean the difference between life and death. Leaving billions of people in energy poverty is simply unacceptable,” UN Special Representative Ogunbiyi told Al Jazeera.

Household air pollution, mostly from cooking smoke, is linked to around 2.5 million premature deaths annually, with women and children disproportionately affected.

And while the number of people without clean cooking oil has been declining gradually over the past decade – particularly in India and China – the pandemic threatens to reverse this modest progress.

And clean energy is also key to lifting people out of poverty, says Blakemore.

“We cannot forget that we need to set up these countries to power their entire economies with clean energy,” he said. “If we think of it in a purely limited sense, then we will not set these parts of the world up with sweeping economic growth that is powered by clean, sustainable energy.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA