Report Lays Foundation for a Human Right to Access to Modern Energy
ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH, HUMAN RIGHTS, SOCIETY & CULTURE
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Joining what is fast becoming an exercise in developing a wish list of international human rights that dilutes the meaning of human rights in pursuit of global governance and wealth redistribution, three international organizations have published a report on how to make modern energy access universal. This proposed “right to energy” takes its place alongside several other international economic rights the legal basis and content of which are disputable, including, but not limited to, the right to development, right to water and sanitation, right to food, right to access to medicines, and the right to vacation.
The report, titled “Energy Poverty: How to Make Modern Energy Access Universal,” is a special early excerpt from the World Energy Outlook 2010 published for consideration at the recent United Nations General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals. The World Energy Outlook 2010, the full text of which is due to be published in November, 2010, is the latest in a series of annual reports jointly published by the International Energy Agency, the United Nations Development Programme, and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.
The Report focuses on the need for universal access to modern energy services, which is defined as household access to electricity and clean cooking facilities (i.e., clean cooking fuels and stoves, advanced biomass cook stoves, and biogas systems). The Report explains that access to modern forms of energy is essential for the provision of clean water, sanitation, and health care, and provides great benefits to development through the provision of reliable and efficient lighting, heating, cooking, mechanical power, transport, and telecommunication services.
To illustrate the adverse consequences that the use of traditional forms of energy has on health, economic development, and the environment, the Report relies on the example of the use of traditional biomass for cooking. Currently, devices for cooking with biomass are mostly three-stone fires, traditional mud stoves, or metal, cement and pottery or brick stoves, with no operating chimneys or hoods. As a consequence of the pollutants emitted by these devices, pollution levels inside households cooking with biomass are often many times higher than typical outdoor levels, even those in highly polluted cities. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 1.45 million people die prematurely each year from household air pollution due to inefficient biomass combustion. A significant number of these are young children, who spend many hours each day breathing smoke pollution from the cook stove. The Report asserts that, today, the number of premature deaths from household air pollution is greater than the number of premature deaths from malaria or tuberculosis.
While few persons would dispute the tremendous need to improve access to modern energy worldwide, the Report goes too far in classifying universal access to modern energy as a human right that requires the creation of “a new financial, institutional, and technological framework,” and “capacity building in order to scale up access to modern energy services at the local and regional levels.” To enhance the UN’s role in the global governance of the right to access to modern energy, the Report provides a monitoring tool, the Energy Development Index, which ranks developing countries on their progress toward modern energy access. Various UN treaty bodies, including the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, could use a country’s score on the Energy Development Index to assess the degree to which the country is fulfilling the right to access to modern energy. Likewise, NGOs could rely on a country’s low score on the Energy Development Index to facilitate the filing of legal complaints by citizens against their country.
The Report argues that, unless substantial progress is made on improving energy access, the UN Millennium Development Goal to eradicate extreme poverty by 2015 will not be achieved. The Report argues that, to meet the ambitious target of achieving universal access to modern energy by 2030, an additional investment of $756 billion, or $36 billion per year, is required. Of course, during these times when government budgets are severely limited, this additional investment could only be achieved through the types of international taxes proposed by the UN and human rights experts to finance the right to development and other emerging human rights.
Jim Kelly is the President of Solidarity Center for Law and Justice, P.C., a public interest civil and human rights law firm based in Atlanta, Georgia. The opinions expressed herein are his own.
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