Episode 187: Energy Poverty & the Climate Crisis with Energy for Growth Hub's Katie Auth
Today's guest is Katie Auth, Policy Director at The Energy for Growth Hub. The Energy for Growth Hub is a global solutions connector, matching policymakers with evidence-based pathways to a high-energy future for everyone. Katie explains why energy poverty is a climate problem, the hub's work to address policy, and how she got into her role.
As always, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review. We heard that helps spread the word about our little show and engages more folks in the climate fight!
Before we dive into the problem itself, maybe just for context, talk a bit about Energy for Growth Hub and what the organization does
So, the Energy for Growth Hub is a relatively new, pretty small think tank, we're based in DC. And it spun off from the Center for Global Development, which is where our Executive Director Todd Moss was working. And basically, we have two big aims. The first is that we wanna drive the discussion around energy poverty to be more ambitious. So there was a huge focus, kind of over the past decade, a lot of people focusing on solving energy poverty, but really drilling down on household-level access, providing people with basic lighting services, getting them to kind of that initial rung of the most basic electricity provision, the starting point. And unfortunately, while that's super important and we absolutely need to address that challenge, there's so much more that we need to be focusing on.
And we're trying to push international development organizations, financiers, anyone involved in this space to be thinking bigger. Electricity for economic growth, for diversification, for really building industry and enabling entrepreneurship to flourish, and all the things that go into creating flourishing economies in this new climate-constrained world. And then the flip side of that, is that we also try to channel a lot of really interesting research that's happening in academic organizations and other places around the world into the hands of policymakers. So, I was former US government, Todd was as well. And the people who are in those types of positions, simply don't have the time to digest long academic studies on energy technology, or whatever else is going on. So, we work with a network of researchers and academics around the world, and we take their research and we get it into the hands of people who can do something with it. And we kind of format it and package it in a way that they can- they can really act on.
How do you think about the problem of climate change and the problem of energy poverty and how they are different and how they interrelate?
I guess, if you don't mind, maybe I'll just give when I talk about energy poverty because this isn't a typical subject for your show, I'll just briefly explain what I mean. So, I think when you look at energy poverty in African economies, or elsewhere, but I focus largely on Africa. I think, you know, most people are broadly familiar with the fact that there are millions of people without access to electricity at all. So, right now there are about 600 million people across Africa that don't have access to any electricity. That's kind of like square one. But I don't think many people realize how deep that energy poverty goes. So, if you look at, you know, a specific country in Africa, even the fairly advanced economies like Kenya or Nigeria, the average citizen is often consuming less electricity in one year than you're using just to power your refrigerator.
So that's the entirety of their energy consumption, their electricity consumption, is less than just a small portion of what you or I use on a daily basis. And that figure represents, you know, it's averaged across the economy. So that's also a reflection of the fact that that Nigerian citizen or Kenyan citizen is just not living in an economy that's actively consuming large amounts of electricity to power industry, manufacturing, and other businesses. So, it's, it's a really deep problem. And then, you know, compounded on that, you have places in which even where people do have access to electricity, it's often unreliable or it's very expensive. And so those create just an additional layer of burden and barrier on entrepreneurship and creativity and really stifle a lot of potential economic activity and opportunities for people.
I think in contrast to what you asked about kind of how it's different than climate change. I mean, I think in some ways, the impacts of it are much more immediate, although obviously, like with climate where every day seeing more immediate impacts, but I think with energy poverty, it's, it's such a significant barrier on people's lives right now, today, you know, people in hospitals without electricity are dying even. So, I think part of the conflict that sometimes arises when discussions end up being framed, in terms of it either has to be solving energy poverty, or addressing climate change, I think that's a false dichotomy. But part of what drives that is this, this urgency of solving energy poverty, and it's easier to kind of think about climate change as a longer term issue. But part of the reason I do what I do is that I don't think you can separate them out. I think they're intertwined and I think we have to solve both of them together.
Historically, what has held back the hundreds of millions of people that you mentioned from having access to basic electricity for example, or any of the other issues that, that you just called out? I'm trying to get the why behind what's been driving that.
So, at this point is a financial situation in which if you look at African power sectors, a lot of them are in deep, deep financial distress. And what that means is that the public utilities that are in charge of purchasing privately produced electricity and selling it to consumers are often, you know, essentially bankrupt, unable to recover their costs, really operating, totally dependent on public subsidies. And so that makes it very risky for a private company to come in and say, "I'm gonna come and build a solar plant or a wind farm in a particular country, and I'm gonna sell that electricity to the utility." They're doing it. I mean, those projects are getting built, but it often requires guarantees and other forms of risk mitigation tools from development organizations.
And you know, just escaping from that vicious cycle is difficult, because when a utility doesn't have the capital to invest in its own infrastructure, then the quality of the electricity that it's selling to consumers deteriorates, and then consumers don't wanna pay because they're not getting a quality of service that they appreciate. And so then the utility has less revenue, and it just kind of creates this doom cycle. And so I think escaping from that is one of the toughest challenges.
When you think about the best ways to address energy poverty, maybe talk a bit about the best ways to address them without factoring in the externalities or emissions and, and then talk a bit about how cleaner choices factors in or should factor in if at all?
I would kind of push back on the premise. I personally don't think we should ever be investing in energy infrastructure anywhere in the world without considering the externalities. Right? But one of the points that the Hub tries to make is it puts, you know, the emissions from countries that are suffering from deep energy poverty in context. Right? So, a country like Sierra Leone or Liberia, they're producing a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of global emissions. And so, there's an argument to be made there that let's provide those countries which are struggling to provide basic services to citizens, let alone develop broader economic goals, let's give them what flexibility we have to use fossil fuels where they need it.
And countries like the US and Europe, we should be working much, much faster to decarbonize our own grids because we have the capacity to do so. And I think that's kind of the equity challenge that arises here, is cleaner solutions will absolutely be a major component. They should be the major component of ending energy poverty, but in situations where natural gas may be needed as a transition fuel, I'm interested in exploring kind of how do we do that responsibly? How do we help countries actually make that transition in a way that supports equity and supports global development and doesn't punish the poorest populations on Earth?
What are some examples of some ways that policymakers were thinking that led you to say they should be thinking bigger? And then what does thinking bigger look like as the Energy for Growth Hub defines it?
There these things called the sustainable development goals, and it's basically the UN's framework for measuring global development priorities around the world. And SDG 7 is focused on ending energy poverty. But if you really dig into how they're capturing it, it's looking at electricity for households. And it counts people as having access to electricity at a very, very low bar. So, it's just one example of kind of how we've been focused on the first tier of access. And so the Hub's point was, "That's great, that's super important, we wanna keep doing that, but there needs to be a bigger, longer term vision." And in our minds, that would include kind of setting a bar both higher.
So, looking at setting the bar for electricity consumption at a threshold that actually enables economic activity, but then also looking at electricity consumption outside the home. So, not just what is a family consuming, but what is an economy consuming and where? And is it powering business and entrepreneurship and you know, all of these other critical services, hospitals and schools, and you know, all the things that create opportunity for people?
Now, what are the implications of these SDGs? And what I mean is, if the SDG is worded differently, how does that play out? Because let's say it's worded one way, well, if that country wanted to, the country could, you know, fund it through other means. It could be taxes, it could be internal R&D, it could be subsidies, it could be anything that's after disposal. So, help me understand the importance of the SDGs and how that manifests.
With something like the SDGs, which are these really high-level global, UN-backed structures that we create, these frameworks, it's less about specific financing and more about vision settings. So, you know, you're gonna fund what you measure. And so it's a tool to focus people's attention on a particular aspect of development, whether it's energy poverty or, or anything else. I think the problem with setting it with focusing people's attention at very low thresholds of energy access, or that that ends up being where the development finance goes, it drives a lot of attention and interest there. And it's not necessarily... Well, it's certainly not the only issue we need to deal with. But it's also not necessarily the most impactful place to focus if your goal is actually to power broader, broader development. So, the SDGs are more of a way to focus people's time and attention, and resources at a global scale.
What I said before about the Western countries being the primary drivers for historical emissions, but the developing countries having the most implications for the future, do you agree with that statement? And, and if so, what are the implications of that in terms of the role of the historical emitters for example in the transition?
So obviously, I mean, historical emissions and thinking about historical emissions is a useful tool for thinking about equity, but it's obviously not a useful tool for thinking about climate impacts, because where they come from doesn't matter. Right? I think one of the problems with that stat that people often cite about developing economies being responsible for most of the future emissions is that that usually includes India and sometimes China, which are just, you know, that's gonna skew the scale every time. And I think those countries are in a pretty different category than most of the economies where the Hub focuses its attention, which is much smaller, much deeper. I mean, India is still dealing with deep energy poverty. But like, the countries where we're focused is a very different scale.
And there's a danger in, in grouping those in a big bucket as if they're all the same. Liberia is just not going to be responsible for a large share of global emissions in the future. But I do think that there are huge opportunities right now to support those countries as they shift towards a lower carbon system. I mean, I, I don't think there are any countries that aren't taking climate seriously, you know, or, you know, African countries have signaled their intent to address this problem, they want to take advantage of new cleantech, it's just a question of kind of how we support them in doing that, in a way that both ends energy poverty as quickly as we can, and also puts countries on a longer-term trajectory towards, towards zero carbon.
As the organization prioritizes, tactically and from a resource standpoint over, you know, the next quarter, 12 months, two years, five years, is there one, or are there a handful of key initiatives that you're really putting most of your weight behind? Or, or is it more of a long tail? Like how do you prioritize in terms of what you resource for? And, and what are those priorities?
We have a handful of kind of core thematic issues that we focus on. And then I would say there's a good mix of long-term planning about, okay, ultimately, what do we wanna achieve over a five-year time horizon? And then there's also room within that because we're a policy-focused organization, you have to kind of leave room to be reactive and say, "Okay, where are the windows today or in the next year to actually make progress here?" In terms of issues, I think, in addition to a lot of the stuff we've talked about already, one is how to support energy markets in really low-income economies to make the way they develop clean energy, faster, cheaper, and more transparent.
So we really see that as, as a critical building block for scaling up clean energy markets worldwide. And right now, a lot of them are secretive, it's often kind of deals being done behind closed doors. And it just doesn't create the competitive marketplace and the open system where you get benchmarks and you'd start to drive down prices, and you'd start to move faster. And we wanna see that happen. Another topic is related to what we discussed before, but really thinking about what climate justice means in relation to energy poverty. So in the US a lot of what climate justice means is focused on the fact that climate impacts are going to be experienced, you know, predominantly by lower-income and disadvantaged populations. But there's also an element of climate justice that has to ensure that ending energy poverty and prioritizing energy solutions for people that provide them with opportunities has to be part of that conversation.
And then we're also you know, more focused on the minutiae of, of policymaking, and where development finance goes. So we're working with, you know, major US agencies, like the Development Finance Corporation and USAID, to kind of help, hopefully, steer development money into what we think are the most productive places.
Interested in coming on our show? Have a guest you’d like to hear from? Don’t hesitate to reach out! Email us at info@myclimatejourney.co.