If we can speed up the deployment of clean energy technologies in developing countries with investments from the Green Climate Fund, hundreds of millions of people will be able to access electricity for the first time - with all the education, health, communication and entrepreneurial opportunities electricity enables.
You can't just provide power, you also need public education.
In Vancouver, in Sydney and in Orange County, we live among fluorescent stores and streets so brightly lit that you can read a book after dark; in other places across our global body, there are blackouts and curfews every night.
The REA [Rural Electrification Administration] brought us electric lights when no one else would.
Bergland was Director of the National Rural Electric Cooperatives at the time of the statement.
Even after so many decades of Independence there are 18,500 villages in India which do not have electricity. We affirm our commitment to provide electricity to all those villages that do not have electricity.
The next most dangerous thing [after nuclear proliferation] is probably... global warming, and then, right behind that are overpopulation -- we need to get serious about family planning-and trying to alleviate poverty, to get clean, renewable energy, probably with solar panels to the billion and a half people in the world who don't have access to electricity.
Energy is not a political issue for the Modi government. It is our commitment to provide electricity to every household of the country.
I've been studying how quickly we can get energy out to the poor countries - a lot of which are in Africa - and how little progress we've made there. There's no more electricity today in sub-Saharan Africa per person than there was 20 years ago.
Climate change is important to Malawi, but many people see alternative energy more as a means to skip the government and get electricity and power. Deforestation is a huge problem in Malawi, which only adds to the problem. People cut down trees because they have no power to run electric stoves, etc. So they use firewood.
1.5 billion people lack proper access to electricity. Many buy kerosene, which can cost 30 percent of their income. It sends millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. And often the lamp will fall over and catch the house on fire. So mothers hate it, but it's their only option.
There are 18,500 villages in the country where electricity is yet to reach. We want to ensure these villages are electrified within the next 1000 days.
My mother was determined that I was going to leave the farm and do well in life. And she thought with the gift, I might be able to do that. So she took in washing. She got a washing machine in 1942 as soon as we got electricity and she took in washing. She washed the schoolteacher's clothes and anybody she could and sent me for singing lessons for $3 per lesson.
Utilities get out of the way. Can you imagine if you flipped a light switch and had to watch an ad before you got electricity? Can you imagine if you turned on a faucet and had to watch an ad before the water came out?
In Liberia, our main obstacle is infrastructure: the lights, the water, the roads. Companies can't operate without those things. And even though we have commitments from our partners, it takes time to turn commitments into cash.
I know a lot of people around the world have these problems where there's just no light, no electricity, nothing.
... freedom translates into having a supply of clean water, having electricity on tap; being able to live in a decent home and have a good job; to be able to send your children to school and to have accessible healthcare. I mean what's the point of having made this transition if the quality of life ... is not enhanced and improved? If not, the vote is useless.
Power for all includes people who are interested in getting a connection. It cannot be for people who don't want the connection. Having said that, I am confident everybody will apply for power once they are sure that they will not be short-charged.
Computers are very expensive and they need power, and that can be a problem in Africa.