According to the report, which was produced by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), with support from the International Energy Agency (IEA), 1.2 billion more people will need access to electricity, in order to halve the proportion of people living in poverty by 2015.
It also stated that 2 billion more people will need access to modern fuels like natural gas or Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), also called propane.
The report said 2 million people die every year from causes associated with exposure to smoke from cooking with biomass and coal, while 99 per cent of those deaths occur in developing countries.
“In LDCs and sub-Saharan Africa, half of all deaths from pneumonia in children under five years, chronic lung disease and lung cancer in adults are attributed to solid fuel use, compared with 38 per cent in developing countries overall.
“The time has come to make hard choices needed to combat climate change and enhance global energy security, and at the same time we should not forget 1.5 billion people who have no access to electricity in the developing world," Fatih Birol, chief economist of IEA, said in the report.
Source: Afrique en ligne