Provide Energy for Everyone
On an ordinary morning, we turn on the light, take hot showers, pull milk from the fridge and cook breakfast.
But these daily tasks are impossible for the 1.5 billion people who live every day without electricity. Twice that number don't have fuel to cook food or heat their homes.
Without electricity, these billions of people are condemned to poverty. Countries cannot support sustainable development or provide adequate health care and food for their citizens. Ensuring universal access to affordable electricity will grow economies and fight poverty.
Support UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's goal to reach universal access to energy by 2030.
Dear Secretary-General Ban,
Thank you for addressing the serious problem of lack of energy access to the world's poor. It is tragic that 1.5 billion people live every day without electricity and that twice that have no energy for cooking or heating their homes.
Without energy, families are unable to pull themselves out of poverty and countries are unable to support sustainable development. Ensuring that everyone has access to clean, reliable and affordable energy services and also reducing the amount of energy needed to produce goods are essential to reaching the UN's long-term goals of eradicating poverty and stopping climate change.
You wrote in a recent report from the Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change that "the decisions we take [sic] today on how we produce, consume and distribute energy will profoundly influence our ability to eradicate poverty and respond effectively to climate change." Please, live up this statement, and work to provide affordable, clean energy to everyone by 2030.
