Improving Air Quality
Ending Energy Poverty
According to the World Health Organization, approximately one-quarter of the global disease burden, and more than one-third of the burden among children, is due to modifiable environmental factors. Air pollution has become the world's single biggest environmental health risk, linked to around 7 million – or nearly one in eight deaths in 2012. Energy production and use, mostly from unregulated, poorly regulated or inefficient fuel combustion, are the single most important man-made sources of air pollutant emissions.
1.2 billion people are without access to electricity and more than 2.7 billion people are without clean cooking facilities. More than 95% of these people are either in sub-Saharan African or developing Asia, and around 80% are in rural areas.
An energy grid powered entirely by renewable energy does more than mitigate climate change. The effects, in human life and health, are immediate and substantial.