Powering Cities in the Global South: How Energy Access for All Benefits the Economy and the Environment

The document identifies three primary energy challenges for cities in the global South: the urgent need for increased access, unsustainable growth in energy demand, and the risk of locking in carbon-intensive development models. It proposes three scalable solutions: accelerating the shift to cleaner cooking fuels, scaling up distributed renewable energy (specifically solar PV), and increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and appliances. The authors argue that these interventions provide dual benefits, improving health and livelihoods for the urban poor while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution for the city as a whole. Implementation requires coordinated governance, policy reforms such as removing fossil-fuel subsidies, and innovative financing models like pay-as-you-go schemes.

• Cities in the global South face three critical energy challenges: a lack of clean and affordable energy access, unsustainable demand growth that threatens to overwhelm supply systems, and a dependency on fossil-fuel-intensive development models that increase pollution and climate risks.
• Urban energy access varies significantly by region; while electricity access averaged over 97 percent in 2012 for East Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and South Asia, it was only 58 percent in low-income countries.
• The use of solid cooking fuels in urban areas causes significant health crises, with an estimated 550,000 premature deaths occurring in urban areas in 2010 due to indoor air pollution.
• The document recommends three specific urban energy solutions: shifting to cleaner cooking fuels (such as LPG, biogas, and ethanol), scaling up distributed renewable energy (primarily solar PV), and improving the energy efficiency of buildings and appliances through codes and standards.
• Scaling up solar PV could significantly reduce emissions; tripling current installed capacity across 60 countries would reduce GHG emissions by 108 MtCO2e, which is equivalent to Belgium's total annual emissions in 2012.
• Buildings are the largest energy consumers in urban areas globally and represent the most significant 'lock-in' for energy use; efficiency measures can reduce energy use by 50% to 90% in new buildings and 50% to 75% in existing ones.
• Successful implementation of these energy solutions requires enabling institutions, policy reforms—such as replacing the US$330 billion in pretax fossil-fuel consumption subsidies (2015) with targeted cash transfers—and new finance models like pay-as-you-go schemes.

APA

Westphal, M. I., Martin, S., Zhou, L., & Satterthwaite, D. (2017). Powering Cities in the Global South: How Energy Access for All Benefits the Economy and the Environment. World Resources Institute. https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/powering-cities-in-the-global-south-exec-summary.PDF

Chicago

Westphal, Michael I., Sarah Martin, Lihuan Zhou, and David Satterthwaite. Powering Cities in the Global South: How Energy Access for All Benefits the Economy and the Environment. World Resources Institute, 2017. https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/powering-cities-in-the-global-south-exec-summary.PDF.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Westphal |first1=Michael I. |last2=Martin |first2=Sarah |last3=Zhou |first3=Lihuan |last4=Satterthwaite |first4=David |title=Powering Cities in the Global South: How Energy Access for All Benefits the Economy and the Environment |publisher=World Resources Institute |date=2017 |url=https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/powering-cities-in-the-global-south-exec-summary.PDF |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{westphal2017powering, author = {Westphal, Michael I. and Martin, Sarah and Zhou, Lihuan and Satterthwaite, David}, title = {{Powering Cities in the Global South: How Energy Access for All Benefits the Economy and the Environment}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, year = {2017}, url = {https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/powering-cities-in-the-global-south-exec-summary.PDF}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }