Access to Energy Climate Change Energy Efficiency
Renewable Energy Sustainable Oceans
IECS works at the intersection of core sustainable development issues in both developed and developing countries.
Over one billion people worldwide lack access to modern electricity and must resort to traditional forms of heating and cooking that fill their homes with indoor air pollution that kills over six million people each year.
Meanwhile, the modern energy infrastructure relied on by others is also highly polluting, emitting tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil.
According to the International Energy Agency, the existing energy infrastructure already in place by 2017 will by the end of its lifetime emit enough carbon dioxide to push the planet past the globally agreed goal of limiting warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius.
Deploying clean forms of energy, such as renewable energy, and using energy efficiently are therefore imperative. Deploying clean energy to those without access to electricity reduces the potentially fatal health risks of indoor cooking and provides much needed resources for economic development health and well-being. Deploying clean energy in the developed world displaces the dirty fossil fuel based energy that contributes so greatly to climate change and helps to set in motion the scaling up of global demand that will make clean energy available to all.