Ninth session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development: the energy focus

The ninth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) opened at the UN headquarters in New York on 16 April. The agenda for this session requires participants to consider the sectoral themes of energy and atmosphere, the cross-sectoral themes of information for decision-making and participation and of international cooperation for an enabling environment, and the economic sector theme of transport. The session's multi-stakeholder dialogues, at which scientists will participate for the first time as a major group, will be on energy and transport. After the opening session of this important meeting and the procedural requirements of a formal session of a body of the UN, the first item on the agenda, taking place during 16-18 April, is the multi-stakeholder dialogues on sustainable energy and transport. There is a high-level segment on 18, 19, and 20 April with two thematic dialogues, a panel discussion, and general debate. Drafting groups will start their work in the second week of the session. India's Minister for Environment and Forests, Mr T R Baalu, is expected to participate in the high-level segment. The first presentation on behalf of a group of scientists, specially brought together for the multi-stakeholder dialogues, was made by me on 'Achieving equitable access to sustainable energy'. This subject is of enormous importance against the backdrop of several misperceptions that exist in the minds of influential persons in the developed world, which can be summarised in what a distinguished US diplomat, Lincoln Gordon, criticised as the attitude that 'oil and coal is good for us and sun and dung is good for you'. In the CSD meeting, I took the opportunity to dispel this myth. The developed world has achieved high rates of growth aided and powered by very low priced energy, particularly with low prices of oil. It is only over a little more than a quarter century that oil prices have gone up during specific periods. The developing countries, on the other hand, have to develop not only with the burden of high prices of oil, but they also have to do so from a much lower income base than the developed countries had when their energy infrastructure was being developed. Another unfortunate reality is that a large number of developing countries are net importers of energy, and, therefore, increasing prices of oil in particular hit them rather badly. This is especially true of many countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Yet at this stage the only access to sustainable energy that they have is oil and hydrocarbon fuels. These societies are major users of biomass fuels, the resources of which have depleted beyond sustainable levels. Any further pressure on these biomass resources would not only lead to loss of human welfare with deprivation of fuel for very basic cooking needs, but would also lead to soil erosion and deforestation on an even larger scale. Ultimately, for the poorest societies on earth, the solutions in the future would lie in the development and use of decentralized and distributed energy systems which use renewable resources. These would require three types of interventions on a global scale. Firstly, local capacity and capability to harness these options will have to be developed in local communities and societies. Secondly, an economic framework would have to be created to promote these solutions, such as subsidies on such technologies intelligently administered, and, most importantly, full pricing of other forms of centralized energy supplies. Finally, a massive global effort in the development and commercialization of decentralized renewable options would be required. Unfortunately, in countries like the US, there has been a decline in real support for programmes of research and development on renewable energy technologies over the last two decades. It is only when the cost of renewable energy technologies decreases and their efficiency increases that developing countries can exploit their potential. It is, therefore, necessary for the UN system to take the lead in putting together a programme of action involving stakeholders such as governments, industry, research organisations, and NGOs for developing decentralized energy systems for the world as a whole. It would be a sad story if the world, which has over a billion people living without access to sustainable forms of energy, is not able to solve this problem by the middle of the 21st century. The CSD must spearhead a major programme of action in this area.