Since he was tapped by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to co-lead his global energy access initiative, UNIDO Director General, Kandeh Yumkella, has never missed an opportunity to underscore why access to energy is vital to the world’s poorest.

For poor people, it is about life and death, he said as he delivered the keynote address at the 2012 Ashden Awards ceremony held in the United Kingdom.

According to their website, the Ashden Awards bring to light ground-breaking green energy champions in the UK and developing world and inspire others to follow. From an enterprise bringing clean stoves to rural Africa to a Cornish school embracing energy-saving across its learning and practice, our winners are passionate about bringing change to their communities and the planet.

In our world today, about 1.5 billion people lack access to modern forms of electricity. That is one in five people are without any access to energy and billions more rely on traditional forms such as wood, charcoal, animal wastes to cook meals or to heat their homes.

Until the world community comes together to solve such global challenges, harmful smoke and fumes emitted from polluting and inefficient cooking, lighting and heating devices will continue to kill about two million people dying prematurely each year.

Promoting local sustainable energy and a shift to a low carbon economy that would eventually bring green jobs, energy security, lower fuel bills and reduced fuel poverty is what Ashden does in the UK and the developing world.

Recognized as the best speech that has so far been delivered at the award ceremony, Yumkella inspires his audience and reminds them of the catastrophic human consequences of failing to act fast enough on climate change, while convincing us that the solutions are within our grasp? and leaving his the jam-packed hall yearning for more.

Source: spyghana.com