Global Energy Poverty: The Relevance of Faith and Reason

Abstract

The challenge of energy poverty (EP) primarily confronts the least developed countries (LDCs) of the world, located in Africa and Asia, but is also prevalent within segments of more advanced developing countries in Asia. This article will first delineate the nature of global energy poverty that results in the premature deaths of millions of people and leads to pervasive sickness among many more millions. The article will next sketch the legal and political responses to this problem that have generally applied principles of sustainable development (SD) and the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of 2015 adopted by the General Assembly of the UN.2 The final part of this article will examine the largely ignored conceptual roots of SD-based in justice. It will be argued that the global jurisprudential lineages of justice are intertwined with common strands of faith and reason, traversing the variegated cultural and religious traditions of the world.

Keywords: global energy poverty, sustainable development, least developed countries, religion