How do you achieve an equitable energy transition that includes developing economies?

The author contends that global climate success depends on bridging the gap between developed nations and industrializing emerging economies. While the West prioritizes decarbonization, developing nations must balance climate action with UN Sustainable Development Goals like poverty and energy access. The text highlights the critical need for Asia to transition away from coal, suggesting natural gas as a viable bridge fuel and emphasizing energy efficiency. It argues that cutting oil and gas investment prematurely would be regressive, raising energy prices and potentially increasing coal use in the developing world. The author calls for concrete international financial mechanisms and a fair carbon cost to enable an equitable transition.

• Developing nations face a conflict between climate action and other UN Sustainable Development Goals, including poverty, hunger, health, education, clean water, and energy access, while needing affordable energy for growing populations and urbanization.
• Asia's reliance on coal is a primary challenge for the energy transition; China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam together account for 80% of planned new coal plants. China specifically commissioned 38.4 GW of new coal plants in 2020 and continues to finance 70% of coal plants globally across 152 countries.
• Natural gas is presented as a cleaner alternative to coal and a complement to intermittent renewables, with the author noting that replacing coal with gas has reduced global CO2 emissions significantly more than electric cars over the last five years.
• The author argues that reducing investment in oil and gas is regressive for the developing world as it would increase energy prices and likely lead to increased coal combustion.
• Achieving an equitable transition requires developed countries to fund concrete international mechanisms and financial incentives, alongside the implementation of a fair value for carbon emissions to spur investment in carbon-negative projects.

APA

Jafar, M. (2021). How do you achieve an equitable energy transition that includes developing economies? World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/energy-transition/equitable-energy-transition-including-developing-economies/

Chicago

Jafar, Majid. How do you achieve an equitable energy transition that includes developing economies? World Economic Forum, 2021. https://www.weforum.org/stories/energy-transition/equitable-energy-transition-including-developing-economies/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Jafar |first1=Majid |title=How do you achieve an equitable energy transition that includes developing economies? |publisher=World Economic Forum |date=27 September 2021 |url=https://www.weforum.org/stories/energy-transition/equitable-energy-transition-including-developing-economies/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{jafar2021how, author = {Jafar, Majid}, title = {{How do you achieve an equitable energy transition that includes developing economies?}}, publisher = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2021}, month = sep, url = {https://www.weforum.org/stories/energy-transition/equitable-energy-transition-including-developing-economies/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }