But when I visited Lugbe, the sensory experience was totally different. Daniel Kalu, wearing a royal blue cotton shirt and a big smile, showed me why.

Kalu has owned D’Sparkles Laundry on Lugbe’s high street for years. As he proudly showed off his one-room launderette—garments on hangers, an iron steaming away, and a washer tumbling—Kalu revealed that a standalone solar and battery system had changed everything for him and his business. With reliable and affordable electricity, Kalu explained, he could work more efficiently, clean and iron more clothes for his clients, and keep his shop open later. Before the solar and battery system was installed in 2023, Kalu relied on a gasoline generator to run a single washer. Now that he has more reliable electricity, D’Sparkles was going to get a second washer—and an AC unit was soon to be installed, as well.

As we talked, Kalu pointed to the idle generator out back, a costly alternative for people who depend on an unreliable central grid. He told me he still used it occasionally when he needed some extra power but relied on the machine less and less thanks to the electricity from a standalone solar installation. That system is supported by the Universal Energy Facility (UEF), a finance facility that provides incentives for energy companies to install clean power systems in underserved communities. It is also supported by the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP), of which the Rockefeller Foundation is a founding member.

The transition from dependency on a generator to renewable energy is what made Lugbe different from countless other communities around the world. Reliable energy makes it possible and easier to run a business, expand one or take on a side job, study for a degree, or use digital tools that can make work more efficient and profitable. Rather than the constant overbearing noise of generators, Lugbe was filled only with the hustle and bustle of shop owners, clerks, and customers. Freed from the noxious, smoky odor of burning diesel, the air was fresh and clean.

For much of the world, the urgency around the energy transition is due to the harsh realities of the climate crisis, and for good reason. But right now nearly 3.8 billion people struggle with limited access to power, and nearly 700 million of them have no electricity. The energy transition is really about people like Kalu, and their hopes for a better future. As those places develop and expand their power systems, the path they take will directly influence the world’s ability to address the climate crisis. Without transitioning to clean power systems, energy-poor countries will become the planet’s biggest emitters later in the century, and we will hurtle toward climate catastrophe. Or the world can instead close the green power gap—that is, produce enough clean energy needed for developing economies to grow to their potential.

Closing the green power gap will require a level of effort and investment from governments, philanthropies, and the private sector with few precedents. Opportunity-focused, climate-friendly development is possible, and communities like Lugbe and people like Daniel Kalu are on the front lines of the most important global undertaking in half a century.

Throughout history, access to power has been one of the strongest determinants of a person’s and community’s well-being. This was true in the days when the primary energy source was fire and, later, wind sails, steam locomotives, and actual horsepower. Since the late 1800s, power has been fossil fuel—coal, oil, and natural gas. Whereas in the 20th century, agricultural advances often defined a society’s economic mobility, in the 21st century’s globalized digital economy, electricity access usually determines a person’s job prospects, educational ceiling, nutrition, health, safety, and more.

The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative has highlighted the correlationbetween a lack of electricity access and other poverty indicators and shown the potential for universal electrification to drive swift, inclusive economic development. The initiative found that 99 percent of people living in what is known as energy poverty—defined as the “condition of unstable and/or unaffordable access to electricity and clean fuels”—experience one or more simultaneous deprivations, including lack of access to education, proper nutrition, and clean drinking water.

But the need for electricity goes beyond poverty. In a digital economy, electricity provides access to not just the basics but also better opportunities. It helps farmers irrigate a larger field, and sellers of products and services research prices before they go to market. It helps fishermen refrigerate their catches and farmers track weather patterns. And as artificial intelligence transforms work, industry, and the future, the powerless will be left farther behind or left out altogether.

The power of power is why over the last 50 years, advanced and emerging economies saw their per capita consumption increase by nearly 4,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh). Meanwhile, energy-poor countries’ consumption only increased by about 500 kWh per capita in the same timeframe due to a lack of reliable supply. Today, in the United States and countries like Nigeria, demand is growing—and is only going to increase further.

For more than a century, there was just one model for countries to meet that demand: governments building centralized power grids connected to huge generating plants, mostly powered by gas or coal. This pathway was successful for wealthier nations like the United States, which subsidized the infrastructure at such a scale that they could provide electricity to just about everyone without much awareness of externalities like carbon emissions. Emerging economies have, in many cases, followed this same path: In 2023 alone, China added about 50 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power capacity, accounting for two-thirds of the world’s new coal power construction.

For developing nations, the fossil fuel path has not been as straightforward. These countries have been hampered by, variously, insufficient access to capital, limited capacity to subsidize, corruption, and—more recently—the pressure to tackle climate change. Nigeria encapsulates the result: it has simultaneously the world’s largest unelectrified population and a long-standing dependence on fossil fuels. Daily blackouts are common for many of its people, including those in Lugbe. As a result, Nigeria hosts around 3 million generators—about half of sub-Saharan Africa’s total.

The good news is that a new path to power has opened. Huge technological advances on many fronts—solar panels, battery storage, and remote metering and troubleshooting—make it possible to integrate battery systems, even imperfect ones, into existing grids to increase their reliability and sustainability. These nimble, clean systems could one day end the reliance on fossil-fueled power stations that weren’t working very well for underserved communities anyway.

But the bad news is that path is not necessarily easier. High interest rates and inflation are making it even more expensive for debt-laden countries to invest, particularly as climate change is already making life more difficult for their people. Faced with immature markets, unstable currencies, and untested returns, private capital flows elsewhere. In 2023, 90 percent of global renewable capacity additions occurred in advanced economies and China. Looked at by population, that disparity means a third of the world’s citizens received the benefits of nearly all renewable energy investments; the other two-thirds received just a sliver.

Today, the inaccessibility of both energy pathways for developing countries is why over 3.8 billion people are living across 72 countries considered energy-poor. Per capita electricity consumption in these countries is, on average, less than 1,000 kWh of electricity per year, whereas the average American household consumes around 12,000 kWh. For example, despite having the largest economy in the region, Nigeria’s electricity consumption per capita was only around 145 kWh in 2021, with some 86 million lacking any access at all. Worldwide, 685 million are still completely disconnected from any source of electricity, many of whom live in Africa or Asia.

Each of those people has a right to the electricity needed to live and thrive today, and in response, their governments will build that capacity, regardless of climate consequences, or suffer for it. With renewable technology still out of reach, many poorer countries and communities are unsurprisingly relying on fossil fuels for development. Energy-poor countries’ power generation has increased around 7 percent annually since 2020, mostly from fossil fuels, and with predictable results. Global emission trends already reflect this: While energy-related emissions fell by 4.5 percent within advanced economies in 2023, global emissions rose by 1.1 percent.

Over the long term, this trend will doom any hopes of checking climate change. An analysis last year showed how, if the 72 energy-poor countries rely on fossil fuels for development, they could be responsible for as much as 75 percent of emissions by 2050. In this scenario, even if every other country reaches net zero between 2050 and 2060, the entire world will exceed 2 degrees Celsius of warming—failing in its climate goals and threatening the well-being of everyone on the planet.

The only hope to prevent climate change’s worst is to ensure developing countries can pursue the renewable path to abundant electricity for their people. Delivering that abundance while keeping warming controlled is the challenge. A new report from the Rockefeller Foundation found that even in an optimistic scenario where advanced economies achieve their net-zero goals by 2050 and emerging economies by 2060, energy-poor countries would need to stay within a carbon budget of about 207 gigatons—equivalent to about 40 years of current U.S. emissions for a group of 3.8 billion people, which amounts to more than 10 times the current U.S. population.

Sustainable growth is possible, but it would require an exponential growth in clean power development. By 2050, energy-poor countries will need to deploy 8,700 terawatt hours of clean energy assets—roughly twice the United States’ annual total power generation and nearly three times energy-poor countries’ total annual power production.

Closing this green power gap will take significant ambition, partnership, and investment with few historical precedents. Today, estimates suggest that energy transitions in developing countries will require at least $5.8 trillion per year to move quickly. Increased incentives for the private sector to invest and field new tech are needed.

Despite the size of the undertaking, there are reasons to be optimistic.

A portrait of Mustapha Musa Kani taken on June 11. He said the savings his business has seen since switching to solar has gone to higher wages and hiring more employees.SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FOR ALL

For one, renewable energy technology is now cheaper and more accessible than ever, with solar solutions outperforming the market’s expectations and deploying across the world faster than any power tech in history. On-shore wind and hydro technologies have also achieved high levels of penetration in many power markets. Meanwhile, the next generation of maturing renewable technologies—including off-shore wind, micro-hydro, and geothermal power—are ready to be deployed. And there is a plethora of exciting new technologies on the horizon, such as smaller-scale nuclear power.

Even in countries where much of the population lives off established grid systems, the possibilities of standalone systems like the one in Lugbe mean that they can effectively leapfrog off or over the path of fossil fuels to the renewable one. Think of it this way: If, in 2024, a rural community wanted to connect via telecommunication, it would build a cell tower rather than a landline. This is how mobile phone technology leapfrogged in Africa at the start of the century. Now, modern energy tech can do the same thing to achieve sustainable electrification.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer for building clean power systems—and playing to each country’s individual strengths and needs means there doesn’t have to be. For communities like Lugbe, implementing solar and battery systems was the obvious solution. Elsewhere, the answer to the same problem might be extending the main grid and tapping into hydro or wind power, or even a blend of different sources.

For example, since Nigeria’s grid and generation assets remain limited, the country has the potential to build a decentralized, renewables-centric power system even faster than advanced economies. In the short term, the quickest way to provide electricity access to thousands of villages will be by deploying off-grid energy infrastructure like that in Lugbe. Indeed, the average construction time of renewable energy and battery storage systems is less than half that of fossil fuel alternatives. In the medium term, there might be a growing incentive to interconnect these minigrids and absorb them into the national grid as local power demand grows, and there is potential to tap into a diversity of renewable energy resources.

In Nigeria and elsewhere, leapfrogging is happening right now. The country released an energy transition plan in 2021 that shows its expected path to net zero by 2060. It sees energy transition as a path to opportunity, expecting it to generate up to 340,000 jobs by 2030 and up to 840,000 jobs by 2060. With support from development agencies such as The World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB), public-private groups like GEAPP, and non-profits like Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL), the work is underway to accelerate equitable energy transitions.

Leapfrogging is expensive, however. It could exacerbate the debt crises that so many developing countries face. The costs of debt repayment are overtaking inflows of capital—making it even more difficult to invest limited resources in transforming energy systems. Net financial transfers to developing countries peaked in 2014 at $225 billion. By 2022, the net flow had fallen to $51 billion. Projections from the ONE Campaign show that those flows will fall by another $100 billion in the next two years, meaning that around $50 billion will flow out of developing countries this year and next. This is why 48 developing countries spend more on interest payments than on either education or health.

Unfortunately, some of the global efforts to accelerate energy transitions in these countries have struggled to gain traction, either on the ground or with donors. Barriers to progress, including inadequate infrastructure, political instability, and limited access to financing, are keeping the transition at bay in the parts of the world that need it the most, even when wealthier countries are trying to help. For example, the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), launched at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2021, is meant to help bridge expertise, technology, financing, and support gaps that are keeping developing and emerging economies transitioning off fossil fuels. First active in South Africa and then in India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Senegal, JETPs are short of where they need to be thus far.

The world needs to reimagine its approach and provide energy-poor countries with the holistic support that JETPs are striving to deliver. Investment is the first step; the only way this will work is by integrating and scaling public, private, and philanthropic capital, as well as leveraging every innovative tool for development assistance. In addition to resources, including everyone in the energy transition will require policies that incentivize innovation—and sharing it. Policymakers need to remove existing blocks to sharing new innovations and know-how.

The upcoming International Development Association (IDA) fund replenishment offers an opportunity to spur and advance these sorts of projects. For developing countries, IDA’s low-interest loans and grants are the best and cheapest capital infusion, offering debt-laden governments a chance to invest for the long term. While those funds are traditionally allocated to a wide range of development projects, this year’s IDA, on the back of demand from energy-poor countries, should be used to drive these energy transitions, just as the 2021 replenishment focused on pandemic recovery. And wealthier nations must find ways to increase their pledges so the IDA can maintain, and even exceed, the 2021 replenishment (when adjusted for inflation).  No investment of IDA funding could further development goals more than investing in energy.

My visit with Daniel Kalu in Lugbe stuck with me, but I saw a lot of other people whose lives had been changed by access to reliable energy, too.

I talked to the owner of a corner store who told us she could keep the lights on later and do more business. I met a tailor who was able to power more sewing machines for his employees had quadrupled his shop’s productivity and was preparing to hire more and open a second branch. A woman who sold electronic appliances said she could now let people test them in her store and that “try before you buy” had hugely improved sales and customer confidence. She had also set up a popcorn machine in front of the store. I enjoyed some on the road as we continued our tour.

These stories might be small in a dynamic geopolitical and geo-economic moment, but they prove that the desire for opportunity of those in communities like Lugbe can be met in one of two ways: with fossil-fueled electricity or renewable electricity. Denying the dreams of people like Kalu will not work. With the right investments, innovations, and cooperation, the same transformation could occur in the business districts of villages, towns, and cities around Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Closing the green power gap is in every country’s interest. It is not enough for developed countries in the Americas, Europe, and Asia to muster the capital to usher in their own energy transitions, nor is it enough for emerging economies like China to do the same.

Thankfully, the world is starting to come together. GEAPP, for example has invested $464 million of active capital in nearly 100 projects, like the one in Lugbe, in almost 20 countries. Nigeria has GEAPP’s largest country program. The World Bank and African Development Bank have also recently launched an initiative, Mission 300, to connect 300 million people in Africa to electricity for the first time by 2030.

More needs to be done in these initiatives and others. The battle against climate change will depend on whether these countries have the opportunity to develop renewable technologies. We know what needs to be done. Now is the time to move from planning to action.