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Sustainable energy for all

Posted by: sarah-indra, 3. January 2012 - 12:06
Source: http://ourworld.unu.edu

Licensed under: Creative Commons - Attribution Non-Commercial

The United Nations General Assembly has declared that 2012 is the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All. The resolution was passed in August 2011 and may in part have been influenced by events at Fukushima in Japan and the need to promote new and renewable sources of energy. All the right phrases are in the declaration.

We need to transform the global energy system to provide energy for all, to satisfy the growth in demand and to diminish the negative impacts of climate change.

But satisfying the growth in demand is not going to be easy. Shifting to renewables from fossil fuels, though essential, will need to be accompanied by a decline in energy consumption through increased efficiencies and energy savings. This may require a significant cut in per capita energy use in the developed world, in order to accommodate the increasing per capita energy use in the developing world as poorer communities become connected to energy grids.

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