Energy for sustainable development

Agus P. Sari, Executive director of Pelangi, An environment research institute, Based in Jakarta

Energy is crucial to sustainable development. Providing energy allows people to prosper and be productive. At the same time, utilization of fossil fuels -- coal, oil and gas -- can be detrimental to sustainable development in the process of extraction, conversion and use.

This is why energy is at the heart of the negotiations at the fourth preparatory committee meeting (Prepcom IV) for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).

The role of energy in sustainable development has been recognized since the era leading up to the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. But at the Bali Prepcom, this strategic role was reaffirmed -- the meeting was devoted to energy for sustainable development.

During the period between 1987 and 1997, global energy production increased by 17 percent. By 1997, about 9.7 billion tons of oil was produced globally.

But reserves and production of oil, the most versatile form of primary energy, are centralized only in some regions of the world. Access to energy services, as part of the results, is not evenly distributed all over the world.

It is appalling to learn that as many as 2 billion people -- one-third of the world's population -- still lack affordable access to electricity today, according to the World Energy Assessment report.

These people still use fire wood, animal dung and inefficient cook stoves, and their days end when night falls due to the lack of lighting. Exacerbated by poorly ventilated huts, these forms of energy cause detrimental effects to their health due to indoor air pollution. Since women are the ones that spend most their time in the kitchen, they are at the highest risk.

Even more unacceptable is that we need only 120 million tons of oil equivalent of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to provide full access to their daily cooking needs, amounting to only about 1 percent of the total energy consumption globally, 4 percent of the total energy consumption in the United States, or 12 percent of the energy used in U.S. road transportation. On a per capita basis, each American consumes about 10 times the energy of the average South Asian.

The development of energy systems could bring negative as well as positive impacts on sustainability.

Impacts on the society as well as on the environment in the process of extraction, conversion and use have been reported throughout the world. In some countries, extraction of oil and gas has invited problems with local and indigenous communities. Incidences such as Shell Oil in Nigeria and the Chad-Cameroon gas pipeline are exemplary of this issue.

Terry Lynn Karl finds, with few exceptions, a very weak correlation -- if not counter-correlation -- between oil resource abundance and economic development.

She finds in her book titled "The Paradox of Plenty" that countries such as Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Brunei, being "oil- rich" countries, do not show strong economic growth, especially compared with "oil-poor" countries such as Singapore and Thailand.

Along the same lines, Michael Moore found, in his tenure as a visiting scholar at the World Bank, that there was actually a strong counter-correlation between oil and democracy.

Transparency International puts Nigeria, a country where oil constitutes 40 percent of its national income, 70 percent of its government revenue, and 95 percent of exports, as the most corrupt government in the world.

The use of fossil fuels also has detrimental effects on the environment. The transportation sector causes the largest air pollution problems, followed by power plants -- notably coal- powered power plants.

Acid rain due to sulfur emissions has caused major damage to some North American and European forests. There are cases of dead lakes due to acidification.

Also, there is a problem with global warming. Energy and the industrial sector contribute about 75 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions -- about 22 million tons -- due to the massive use of fossil fuels, which constitutes about three-quarters of the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.

From 285 parts per million (ppm), concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, there has been an increase to about 380 ppm today, trapping the radiation of the sun and keeping it within the Earth's atmosphere.

The adverse effect of global warming is devastating. Water scarcity, food shortages, prolonged droughts and massive floods, loss of arable land, health problems and more frequent "natural" disasters will occur as a result -- some of them already have.

Achieving a safe level of greenhouse gas concentrations that prevent dangerous interference with the climate system require massive development and deployment of carbon-free energy sources.

In 1997, about 1.3 billion tons of oil was produced throughout the world utilizing renewable sources. If hydropower were excluded, the figure would be about 1.1 billion tons of oil equivalent.

As Greenpeace reports, wind energy is the most rapidly-growing alternative energy producer, averaging about a 50 percent increase per year recently. Pilot projects to develop bio-fuels -- bio-diesel and bio-kerosene - have shown great potential for affordable and much cleaner alternatives to liquid fossil fuels.

But clearly, the increase of local and global pollution due to the massive provision of energy for the poorest 2 billion people should be prioritized. For them, affordability comes first, cleanliness comes second. An increase of 1 percent of fossil fuel use to provide them with decent access to energy services can easily be offset by energy efficiency measures in the industrialized countries.