We are in a critical period when we either change the current trajectory of the climate crisis, swiftly and at scale, or the most vulnerable will suffer disproportionately, and our planet will become increasingly uninhabitable.

Simultaneously we need to support countries with their development priorities, but without adding to emissions. Business as usual isn’t working – we need a new approach and more efficient collaboration.

The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) is a change agent, with a singular focus on the dual challenges of solving energy poverty within a green energy transition, consistent with job-creation and other development needs.

With a tailored response in each country, we diagnose the problem, identify systemic approaches, and deploy our alliance’s unique contributions in each market.

GEAPP works systematically and simultaneously to deploy three levers:

1. Enabling Environments: Building capacity and market conditions for private sector solutions
2. Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Catalyzing new business models to crowd in private sector solutions
3. Risk Capital: Deploying high-risk capital to encourage private sector solutions, and assist just transition solutions

Why it’s urgent:

Energy poverty is a crucial and urgent priority for development. Lack of access to affordable, reliable energy hinders all other development outcomes including economic growth, health, education, livelihoods, women’s empowerment and the job-creation effects of vibrant entrepreneurship and small enterprise development.

• 750 million people lack any access to energy
• 2.8 billion suffer from unreliable access to power and/or get by on less than the established minimum energy usage needed to emerge from energy poverty

In total nearly half the world, some 3.6 billion people, live in energy poverty.

Continuing with business-as-usual where emissions reductions from developed and middle-income countries fall well short of stated targets, while energy-poor countries continue their current emissions growth trajectory, is projected to result in a ~3°C global temperature increase by 2050, an outcome that would be truly catastrophic.

If developed and emerging economies achieve their net zero commitments (by 2050 and 2060 respectively) but developing countries use fossil fuels to rise out of energy poverty, the situation will be only slightly better. By 2050, 75% of all emissions would come from developing countries and the global temperature increase would still be a projected ~2.5°C.

Fortunately, an accelerated energy transition is in reach. The rapid deployment of clean energy technology has the potential to be a major accelerator of human development and job creation while averting the increase of future greenhouse gas emissions.