Energy poverty - lack of access to electricity and reliance on traditional fuels for cooking and heating - remains an enduring problem. Globally, more than a billion people live without electricity and, nearly three billion depend entirely on wood, charcoal and dung for other domestic energy needs. Their search for energy fuels and services is an arduous, daily grind. Lack of access to modern energy has a broad impact. It not only limits economic opportunities for income generation and blunts efforts to escape poverty; but it also severely impacts living conditions for women and children and contributes to global deforestation and climate change. In a business-as-usual scenario, by 2030, the estimated number of deaths from dependence on traditional fuels will likely be greater than those individually from malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, underscoring the necessity of finding more sustainable forms of energy supply.
Over 20% of the global population – 1.4 billion people – lack access to electricity. Some 40% of the global population – 2.7 billion people – rely today on the traditional use of biomass for cooking.
Albania’s energy consumption per capita and its CO2 emissions per capita are low, but due to outdated technologies in many sectors energy intensity is still high.