World Bank: clean energy is the solution to poverty, not coal

The world's poorest populations need a low-carbon revolution to meet their needs and lift them out of poverty

It is the development conundrum of our era. Extremely poor people cannot lift themselves out of poverty without access to reliable energy. More than a billion people live without power today, denying them opportunities as wide-ranging as running a business, providing light for their children to study, or even cooking meals with ease.

Ending poverty requires confronting climate change, which affects every nation and every person. The populations least able to adapt - those that are the most poor and vulnerable - will be hardest hit, rolling back decades of development work.