The Rockefeller Foundation has released a new report highlighting an 8,700 terawatt-hour (TWh) “Green Power Gap” across 72 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East. These countries, home to 3.8 billion people, need to deploy 8,700 TWh of clean power by 2050—about twice the annual energy production of the United States—to transition from traditional, costly, and inefficient energy systems to a future of abundant clean energy.
The report, titled ‘The Green Power Gap: Achieving an Energy Abundant Future for Everyone’, identifies a critical opportunity and outlines four new pathways to address this gap.
The report focuses on 68 countries that fall below the Modern Energy Minimum (MEM)—defined as having less than 1,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of annual per capita energy use, which is necessary for poverty alleviation, job creation, and economic growth. It also includes four additional countries that exceed the MEM threshold but still have significant portions of their populations living below this level.
Of the 72 countries analysed, only eight are located in Latin America & the Caribbean (Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua) and the Middle East (Syria and Yemen), with the majority concentrated in Africa and Asia.
Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation said, “The fate of 3.8 billion people’s lives and the planet itself will depend on whether we can close the Green Power Gap. History makes clear that people and countries will pursue opportunity regardless of the climate consequences. The only way to achieve the world’s climate goals is scaling solutions and mobilising the capital needed to ensure 3.8 billion people have enough clean electricity to lift up their lives and livelihoods.”
“While an energy transition is already taking hold in many advanced and emerging markets, far too many people in Africa are being left behind,” said William Asiko, Vice President and head of The Rockefeller Foundation’s Africa Regional Office.
Deepali Khanna, Vice President and head of The Rockefeller Foundation’s Asia Regional Office said, “While there is no one-size-fits-all answer to a future of clean energy abundance, we believe that there is a ‘green window of opportunity’ based on existing power system assets and the availability of renewable energy resources in Asia. Countries in the region, especially India and Indonesia, are already paving the way by deploying renewable energy technologies at unprecedented scale.”