powering-cities-in-the-global-south-exec-summary-64562de7e62db93f.pdf

This executive summary of a World Resources Institute working paper examines the energy challenges facing cities in the global South and proposes three scalable solutions—cleaner cooking, distributed renewable energy, and energy efficiency—to improve equity, economic productivity, and environmental quality.

• Cities in the global South face three primary energy challenges: the need for increased access to clean and affordable energy, the struggle to meet rising electricity demand amidst system inefficiencies, and the necessity of moving away from fossil-fuel-intensive development models to reduce carbon emissions.
• Urban energy access varies significantly by region; while urban 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 during the same year.
• Energy poverty is a significant burden for poor households in the global South, who often spend between 14 percent and 22 percent of their income on energy, exceeding the 10 percent threshold typically used to define energy poverty.
• The transition to modern cooking fuels (such as LPG, electricity, biogas, and ethanol) could drastically reduce premature deaths caused by indoor air pollution, which the authors estimate may have caused nearly 550,000 urban deaths in 2010.
• Scaling up distributed renewable energy, specifically solar PV, can provide affordable and reliable power to the under-served. In India and China, the average levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for residential rooftop solar PV is now comparable to natural gas-fired generation.
• Improving the energy efficiency of buildings and appliances offers the greatest potential for cities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Switching to the best available household equipment can reduce energy consumption and costs by 40 percent to 50 percent.
• The authors project that regions including China, developing Asia, India, Africa, and Latin America, which accounted for about one-quarter of total urban GHG emissions from buildings, transport, and waste in 2010, will be responsible for approximately 56 percent of total urban emissions by 2050 under a business-as-usual scenario.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). powering-cities-in-the-global-south-exec-summary-64562de7e62db93f.pdf. https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/powering-cities-in-the-global-south-exec-summary.PDF

Chicago

World Resources Institute. powering-cities-in-the-global-south-exec-summary-64562de7e62db93f.pdf. n.d. https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/powering-cities-in-the-global-south-exec-summary.PDF.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=powering-cities-in-the-global-south-exec-summary-64562de7e62db93f.pdf |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{worldresourcesinstitutendpoweringcitiesintheglobalsouthexecsummary64562de7e62db93fpdf, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{powering-cities-in-the-global-south-exec-summary-64562de7e62db93f.pdf}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, 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} }